The fire alarm works....

I know it's not an exciting picture, but I don't have any of pictures of food for this blog, so I'll give you what I've got. The story will come later

Since it's been more than week since my last post, I guess I should begin with dinner at Lovell's. Or maybe I should start with breakfast on our anniversary. I made French Toast...from scratch. Not very creative. I was going to use nutmeg, but when I opened the jar there were buggies in it! Yech! (We've had this ongoing problem with mealy flies (that's not their official name, just my own personal pet name for them), usually they are in baked thing--chips, bread, cereal. I never thought to check my spices. Again, yech!) I used cinnamon instead. And lots of butter. Josh said they were yummy. Even though I FORGOT THE BACON. Jiminy--I'd forget my own head if it weren't attached to my neck.

Dinner was nice, too. I had the filet trio--one was an Oscar-type prep with crab and asparagus; one was a mushroom fricassee, and I can't remember the third one. Josh also had beef, but I can't remember which cut. Maybe a rib eye? He started with crab bisque and I had an heirloom tomato salad. Yummy! For dessert we shared a type of Strawberry Shortcake but it wasn't shortcake it was puff pastry. A great modification to a classic dessert.

And I wore red shoes! That made me feel so sassy and a little sexy. Josh confirmed that, and Eileen (who bought the outfit) and Amelia who was with me for both selection of the outfit and then the shoes said I looked like a "Sexy Librarian." I kinda like that.

I didn't have the red purse then. That was purchased yesterday ($14.99 at TJMaxx). So now I have my own Ruby Slippers!

Okay, on to meals that I've prepared in the past week. I made Shepherd's Pie on Monday. Recipe from Everyday Food. The biggest thrill for me was that I got to use my new 5 qt Dutch oven from my momma. It was pretty good, in fact we're still eating it. Last of it tonight before meeting (Spanish has their CO--thus the schedule change). While the directions called for a Dutch oven, they didn't reflect that choice of cookware. The idea with the Dutch oven is to heat it before you add any food and only as high as med. heat (so the LeCrueset leaflet that was included directed). As a result, my beginning mirepoix (onion, carrot and celery) remained crispy (a good thing in our opinions) and the meat was pink (also good). The final mixture, however, was on the juicy side.

And then there was the mashed potato topping. I don't know what paste Martha's Everyday Food staff was eating that they directed the use of baking potatoes for the mashed. It just didn't work. They were semi-mashed semi-scalloped. It was a big potato-y mess as far as I'm concerned. They were mixed with grated cheddar and that was a hit. Like I said, it was pretty good and we will finish it tonight. I will make it again but I will use different potatoes. When I get it right, I'll share the recipe.

Well this is the part of my story that "tested" our smoke alarm. I mentioned that the meat and veggie mixture was on the soupy side. Then I put the Cheddar mashed on top. Well, it got all bubbly and good smelling in the oven as the juices spilled over the side. Until it got smokey and we nearly died from smoke inhalation. But the smoke alarm saved us. Josh disarmed it while I removed the meal from the oven and frantically opened windows.

Now for a less exciting dinner. I watched a lot of cooking shows over the weekend. When it time came to cook on Wednesday, I garbled up two chicken recipes into one. One of the shows featured lemon chicken, chicken picatta if you will, and the other was a bone in, oven baked preparation that was breaded in fresh bread crumbs, S&P and herbs de Provence with a little olive oil thrown in. I made the fresh bread crumb mixture, plus the zest of 2 lemons and then breaded boneless, skinless chicken breasts which I proceeded to saute in olive oil in pan. I used lemon juice and white wine to deglaze the pan and thickened the sauce with a little corn starch. Of course, I tried to make the sauce while the chicken was still in the pan because after 20 minutes they weren't cooked through yet. Take it from me that that doesn't really work. Despite all the angst, I loved the way this lemon chicken tasted. I will definitely repeat the breading, but bake it in the oven with some quartered lemons around it. This was accompanied by broccoli and cheesy Rice-a-Roni. There was lemon peel in the water with the broccoli. When I asked Josh about dinner while we were in bed that night, his response was that it was very good, especially the "cheesy rice." He's such a cheese ball.

Now for Date Night, which for the novelty of having a date night on a Thursday, was last night. I started with Manhattans (no surprise there--it is our signature drink). But just for kicks, I made a mini batch. Eileen got us some antique glassware for our anniversary--6 cocktail glasses and 6 wine glasses. They're Cambridge Glass from the 1940s. Cocktails and servings of wine were wee 70 years ago.

The stacked glasses to the rear are the cocktail glasses. Eileen thought that they would make good cordial glasses. So I greeted Josh at the top of the stairs with mini-Manhattan. He smiled. Then he made sure that there was a standard size cocktail waiting in the wings. There was.

In my mind the true star of last night's date night was my hors d'oevre. I just saw Giada DeLaurntis do this on Wednesday. I think she called it Mediterranean Crostini. I just call it yummy.

Giada's Version Kristen's Version
whole milk ricotta part skim ricotta
tomatoes, seeded and chopped heirloom tomatoes, seeded and chopped
fresh mint, chopped fresh mint, chopped
salt and pepper salt and pepper

Giada did a true crostini. She squeezed lemon juice over it then brushed it with olive oil and a little bit of dried oregano. I toasted a couple slices of this yummy farmhouse bread and cut them into triangles. Then I rubbed the cut end of some garlic over them and brushed them with olive oil and oregano. Delish! Josh, like a true foody, identified them as toast points as he dipped them into the ricotta/tomato dip.

The rest of the meal was refrigerator tortellini and salad. I didn't even have dessert because when I preheated the oven for brownies I was quickly reminded by the billowing smoke that I had neglected to run the oven on the clean cycle the night before. I think Josh scrounged out some ice cream and a lemon ice.

So that's it for me and cooking this week. Josh and I are going to an all day MS seminar tomorrow and then we have reservations at Morton's for dinner.

That's it for now. Ciao!