Valentine's Dinner 2009

Just about since we have been married, we have stayed in and cooked together on Valentine's Day. We can cook just about as well as a lot of what we can get in a restaurant (mind you, I did not say "as well" but "just about as well" - there is soooooo much more out there in the high end restaurants that I would love to cook but have yet to try), so we would rather have a fun time eating great food and relaxing. We make up a menu of something we have been dying to try or, if we have been on a binge, as this year when my daughter got married the weekend before Valentine's Day and we had LOTS of food and cake left over, we just make a menu of some of our favorite things. Here is this year!

Proscuitto Wrapped Asparagus

This is one of my favorite go-to appetizers.  I can't rememeber where I got the receipe many years ago, but it is very simple.  Trim and blanch your asparagus, take proscuitto and if very long, cut in half, wrap around asparagus, drizzle a balsamic vinegar & oil dressing over, and sprinkle with . . . blue cheese !  OMG, it is just so good !

Tomato Braised Beans with Polenta

My photograph wasn't the best, but you get the idea!  This receipe is actually from Cooking Light and can be found here Tomato Braised Beans.  Although I have always loved any Italian food (southern and northern), when we were in Italy a couple years ago, we had some new and different dishes - lots of fun!!!  The husband fell in love with this receipe and wants it several times a year.  It is "light" - that is, if you don't eat too much of it !!! 

Veal Piccata & Fettuccine 

Of course, most everyone has their favorite receipe for this very simple dish, but if you don't have a favorite, try this one Emeril Lagasse's Veal Piccata.  It's way good !  And we just chop up a bunch of Italian parlsey and throw into the fettuccine along with freshly grated Parmesan, salt and peper, and you have a simple, divine meal.  We no longer eat much pasta, even though we love it.  And when we do, I try to use the whole wheat linguine - but since it was Valentine's Day, we splurged!

Heart-shaped Brownies with Raspberry Sauce

No explanation needed !  Just yum-o-licious !!!

This was my first attempt at royal icing.  And if I recall correctly, it was just powdered sugar, vanilla and milk.  Obviously, I didn't do so great and was too impatient to try and thin it.  But I have since tried using meringue powder, etc., and will post those later.  These really tasted great, but they weren't too pretty to look at !  You can also see the little menu cards I make up - they're to look back at over the years - it gives us a little more "upscale" night - as if we were at a restaurant - just for fun !!!  Wish I had pictures of some of the more memorable Valentine's Day meals we have had.  I'll try to get together all the cards from the past 5 or 6 years and see if I can get them on here.

New Year's Eve 2008

Doesnt' get any better than this ! It was fun, fun, fun, and yum-o-licious ! Here was our menu :

!! New Year's Eve on Stony Ridge !!
Eden Isle ~ 2008

Appetizers - Crab & Scallion Stuffed Shrimp

First Course Soup - She-Crab Soup

Second Course Salad - Fresh Pear Salad with Raspberries & Havarti

Main Course EntréeHickory Smoked Bacon-Wrapped Beef Tenderloin
with Ethereal Mushrooms

SidesHarricot Verte with Lemon & Pine Nuts
Wild Rice with
Mushrooms, Cranberries & Walnut Oil

Dessert Course
Chocolate-Pomegranate Torte

Wonderful food, wonderful wine and champagne, and wonderful friends. A great way to end and start the year!

Several of the receipes were from Fine Cooking magazine and some were our own. A good time was had by all!

A Week at the Lake

In May of each year, we generally take 10 or 12 days and unwind at our lake house.  And, of course, these past 3 or 4 years, we have gone on a cooking binge - we plan 7 or so meals that we have been dying to cook - hopefully, some new and challenging, and some that are our favorites but so fattening, we don't dare cook them but once or twice a year.  So in May of 2006 after we had moved from a condo into our house at the lake, we did just that, and here was our menu:

• Pineapple Teryaki Salmon & Sauteed Spinach
• Pan Seared Halibut with Shrimp Succotash
• Soup !
• Grilled Trumpeter Seabass with Rosemary Roasted Potatoes and Broccoli
• Sauteed Chicken Breasts w/ Button Mushrooms, Safe & Truffle Oil
• Lean Cuisine - LOL !!!
• Fennel Crusted Ahi Tuna w/ Lemon Aioli over Couscous
• Grilled Halibut with Sundried-tomato Tapenade
• Leftover Tuna & Couscous
• Mother's Day Brunch at the Inn !

I don't have many pictures from that week but the one I do have was one of THE most incredible things I have ever had - and, I've had a lot !!  It comes close to the hot / cold foie gras I had at Jardiniere in San Francisco.  This is the Pan Seared Halibut with Shrump Succotash and you can find it at Coastal Living.  The husband came across it, and was dying to try it - NOW, it is one of his top favorites!  In place of the fava beans in the succotash, we used baby limas, and then it calls for chanterelle or cremini mushrooms, shrimp, and a little corn (we used yellow frozen at that time of year), then drizzled with a beurre blanc sauce.  Can you say OMG, we had a foodgasim !!!!

Cupcakes ! Finally !

Well, I decided this weekend to bake. And, since we were sharing dinner with our dear friends/neighbors to watch The Final Four, I wanted to try out my new little cookbook 500 Cupcakes that I picked up in Kansas City.

And, although I said I would try and photograph my baking progress, I completely forgot and, so, all we have is the final product. I chose the classic chocolate cake and after looking at the pictures of THEIR cupcakes with the little DAB of frosting, decided I would make a batch of vanilla butter cream substituting almond extract for the lemon peel as well as a batch of chocolate "icing" they suggested which was really a form of ganache but with butter. I had no self-rising flour, which this book almost always uses, so I made the substitution, and it called for cocoa powder, as well as an extra teaspoon of baking powder. The batter itself tasted really yummy but the final cupcake was more like a genoise -- light but very, very dry. I prefer more of a real cake-like texture with a more chocolate flavor, too. The chocolate icing I let sit for some time, with an occasional whisking, so it would be firm enough to pipe. And the vanilla, I let rest before it was piped. Now, if you like really rich, divine, almondy buttercream icing, this is to die for !!! As was the chocolate. And I want my cupcake totally iced, not just a dab on top! Regardless, I'm going to try some other chocolate cucpake receipes from some of the other blogs, and I'll report back -- I KNOW there is a better one than this EVEN if it had to come out of a box. And hopefully I can remember to photograph the process!

The husband wants to cook something "fun" this coming weekend, so we shall see -- I imagine it will be some kind of fish from one of our many cooking magazines or gazillion cookbooks. I know it will be yum-o-licious if He cooks it!

A Quiet Weekend

We went to the lake last weekend (as always) and "there was no one home." In other words, our dear friends and neighbors on either side of us that are usually there for the weekend were gone, and the only other people on our .7 mile circle were the "regulars" who live there full time. So, it was a very quiet weekend -- which was fine for us -- we were tired, it was nasty and wet outside. What can we do . . . . . . . . . . but COOK !!! So, cook we did. Dinner Saturday night consisted of Sear-Roasted Haddock with Horseradish Aïoli & Lemon-Zest , cannellini beans sauteed with a little olive oil and garlic and then spinach tossed in, and Oven-Roasted Tomatoes with Lemon and Rosemary sprinkled with a little Parmesan on top. The fish (and I LOVE fish) was just okay. The husband liked it a lot, but the aioli was a little too sweet for me -- I'm assuming from the tomato paste concentrate used.  He wanted to know if there was something else we could use and I think we could just leave the tomato paste out of the receipe. We also used panko instead of fresh breadcrumbs which we like for the firmer crunch. The beans and spinach -- don't let those receipes fool you that say to saute the spinach and THEN add the beans. A little saute of the beans really gives them some flavor and softens them just a bit. But OMG, the tomatoes, which I have cooked many times -- they are just to die for !!! And, for a change, I made a full receipe (almost full - not quite FOUR pounds of tomatoes!), and let them cook a little longer to thicken them some. After they broiled for a couple minutes, I added a little shredded parma or asiago (whichever it was that I had) and continued to broil them -- absolutely divine. We had Italy on a plate (except for the fish !!!). And I had plenty of tomatoes left over, so when one of The Darling Stepdaughters came over for dinner last night, I put the tomatoes in a small skillet and let them simmer a while on the stove while everything else was prepared. To die for, AGAIN!!!

 

I haven't baked anything in a few weeks, so, as we go to the lake again tomorrow, I'm thinking I will bake. We're supposed to have pretty weather FOR A CHANGE -- rain ENOUGH -- and I'm dying for cupcakes! Speaking of cupcakes, we went to see The Stepson and The Fiance' in Kansas City on Easter weekend. And . . . . . . where did I HAVE to go but BABYCAKES . Oooh, la, la - yum-0-licious !!! I told those kids, I wasn't coming to Kansas City without a stop at KC's cupcakeateria !!! It was great fun! And the cupcakes were truly divine. I could have eaten my weight in the, which if I don't quit eating them I'll be one giant cupcake girl. I think MY favorites were between the cirtus ones (a lemon and an orange) and, of course, the quintessential red velvet with the cream cheese icing. Maybe THAT's what I'll make this weekend. Oh, and I guess I'll just have to get a pastry bag set for the lake to go with my new "lake Kitchenaid mixer." A girl's gotta have, what a girl's gotta have -- in order to COOK!!!

So, we'll see if I can remember in my advanced age to take pictures as I bake this weekend. Hopefully!

Until then!

Valentines

Ah . . . . . . many, many, many moons later and I'm back. Been working, going to the lake, loving, crying, etc., etc., etc. Anyway, here is the chocolate cake for 2 I made on Valentine's Day for The Husband. I tried a sourcream chocolate cake for a 6 inch in diameter, 2" tall pan -- I only had two 6 inch pans that were about one-half inch tall so I used both of them. My oven at the lake can be hot, so it over-cooked a little. Oh, well, what is a girl to do but POUR ON THE CHOCOLATE GANACHE ! I whipped up some chocolate ganache, let it cool in the fridge and then whisked until just thick enough. Bathed it over the first layer, then topped the second layer and sides. Let it cool in the fridge again while i made the ganache glaze. Poured it over the top and as it continued to cool glazed the sides with the drippings -- it truly was incredible.

I guess I need to work on my blogging technique a little -- we do have some great pictures of food. Dessert is in the works for this weekend for a little neighborhood dinner. I'll see what I can come up with and what The Girlfriend decides on. Until then . . . . . !

An Anniversary Meal

It's true -- I live to eat -- NOT eat to live. What can I say? And I now have this newest addiction/obsession -- not just cooking and eating divine meals and drinking great wine, BUT . . . reading blogs about food. So, I thought -- well, we've been taking pictures of some of the fabulous things - "we" being my husband (who I taught to cook, and cook he DOES !!!) and I have cooked - why not give this blogging-thing a try.  So . . . we'll see. I have day job (which most of the time, I really do like), and several other interests. Which means I don't know how much time I'll really have to devote to this endeavor, but . . . in the meantime, here was last weekend's incredible Parmesan Roasted Halibut with Lobster Mashed Potatoes and a Lobster Reduction Cream Sauce (of which, the husband ladled entirely too much!!!!) adapted from the November issue of Bon Appetit. OMG, I nearly died, it was so good ! We also had a Bosc & Anjou Pear salad with crumbled bleu cheese and a balsamic vinegarette.  Yum-Yum!!!  And, of course, to top it off, we always have a wedding cake top !  The women who made our wedding cake advises that instead of saving your wedding cake top like you did "in the old days" that she make you an entirely new one.  So, what is Babycakes to do but order one for that first anniversary AND EVER SINCE THEN !  ha !!!!  So here it is !  Eat your heart out !!!