Monday, February 8, 2010

Date Night--week of 2/8

Another week, another date night.

This week I am trying a Spaghetti Carbonara recipe that I found on the FoodBuzz website. (Thanks C for inviting me...I am slowly getting to know the site.)

During our cocktail hour, we'll be enjoying our "House" Manhattan...1/2 rye, 1/2 Makers Mark Bourbon. Very tasty. We will be eating shrimp cocktail, as well. Kinda a double cocktail hour, eh?


To boost the veggie quotient for dinner we will be having 2 kinds of salad. Josh loves his Caesar, so he will have that. He is also lately into a simple to make and always have available cucumber salad.

  1. Peel cukes and slice thin (I use the slicing blade of my food processor for this--not the peeling, just the slicing)
  2. Set slices of cucumber in a strainer/colander in/over sink and salt liberally. Ignore for several hours.
  3. Thinly slice an onion...I like red for this salad
  4. Mix rice vinegar and olive oil for dressing. Ratio should be something like 4:1 vinegar. Add Splenda (or whatever sweetener you prefer), salt and pepper. Taste and adjust accordingly.
  5. Mix cukes, onion and dressing and chill.

Dessert will be a true adventure. I am making boxed brownies. (I know, you're saying "Ooooh how adventuresome. Just wait a minute, will ya?) I am swirling in pulverized strawberries. I'm kinda into "swirling fruit" into my desserts lately. Future posts will touch on this.

I have a loaf of crusty Country Italian bread to accompany the pasta. And a nice bottle of red wine. I'll have to consult the "cellar" to make a final selection. By cellar, I mean the spot under the counter where we keep our wine club wine.

So those are my plans for dinner tonight.

Happy Eating!

Kristen

4 comments:

kate said...

To everyone who reads this blog:

the cucumber salad is T.D.F!!!!!!!!

Colleen said...

That recipe is on my list of ones I want to try - I can't wait to hear how it turns out!

PWNort64 said...

The cuke salad sounds absolutely yummy. And the brownies do sound adventurous. Is pulverizing strawberries exactly like it sounds?

KMag said...

Colleen--the carbonara recipe was as easy and tasty as sortachef claimed.

PWN...yes, pulverizing strawberries is exactly as it sounds. At the last minute I added about a T of confections sugar and a tsp of cocoa. They weren't terribly pretty but they did taste a lot like a chocolate covered strawberry.