Valentine's Dinner 2010

Trying to decide what to cook for a special dinner like Valentine's is always difficult for us. We threw around dozens of ideas - crab legs? osso bucco? rabbit? red snapper?

We finally decided to do a tapas night. We traveled to Barcelona two years ago and absolutely loved the food. I also recently received a Spanish cookbook as a gift (thanks Pam!) so this was a perfect idea. We started out with poblano peppers sauteed in olive oil until a little blackened and then finished with sea salt.

Our next dish was these beautiful shrimp with lots of garlic and lots of olive oil. If you have ever been to Barcelona, you will know that they LOVE their olive oil.

We then made these oysters and potatoes. The oysters were topped with spinach sauteed in garlic, lemon juice, and a saffron hollandaise sauce and then broiled. The potatoes were boiled and then cooled, tossed with olive oil (again with the olive oil!), and then baked. There were served with a tomato jam and a homemade aioli (made with olive oil!) We were able to find Spanish smoked paprika at Whole Foods and that really made a difference in the flavor of the jam - yummy!

We finished the meal with individual chocolate cakes with a raspberry sauce and vanilla ice cream. Sounded like a perfect dessert for Valentine's but it was actually a bit disappointing (and did not photograph well!)

Happy Valentine's everyone!

Meyer Lemons Available Now!

Meyer lemons are only available for a short time during the winter months, so get some and make these Meyer Lemon Ricotta Cookies now!

Finally.

I have been wanting a Kitchen Aid mixer forever, but just couldn't justify buying one when I already had a mixer that worked perfectly fine.

The old Sunbeam finally died and I had to throw it out. I'm sure that it was over ten years old, so its time had come. I was thrilled!

I got the black. My first color choice would have been yellow, but it would have been $60 more than the black. (I had a coupon that could only be used in the store and my color choices were limited.) I'm good with the black. It looks good in my kitchen.

The first recipe that I made using it was not a hit. I made Giant Bavarian Pretzels from a Rachel Ray magazine. I am normally not a fan of hers, but I was given a copy by a co-worker that had received a duplicate. I love reading cooking magazines! Anyways, the recipe looked really yummy and really easy - I was excited to try them. Craig loves pretzels. And fresh baked from the oven? Mmmmmmm!

All seemed well until trying to roll out a sticky piece of dough 42 inches long. It all went downhill from there. They were heavy and tough and the flavor was not right.

If anyone has a tried and true baked pretzel recipe, please let me know! My Kitchen Aid is ready for action!

This makes me SMILE! and GREAT ravioli!

We've been gone for a while! Sorry! We actually had our kitchen remodeled this summer and did not have a stove to cook on or a sink to wash dishes in for 29 days. We had a refrigerator, but it was in the basement. We ate a lot of take out and microwave dinners. We missed a lot of farmer's markets, missed grilling out and smoking meats. It really seemed like forever, but it was only 29 days. Not bad for a complete gut! We now have skylights! And two islands! And all new appliances! And this drawer! I love this drawer! What is not to love?

We hadn't really gotten back into our regular routine of cooking fabulous meals together on Saturday nights together until last night. We both wanted fresh pasta. Fresh ravioli we decided. We didn't know what kind we were going to make until we went to our local wine and cheese shop, The Wine Shop of Reading, and tasted a Mountain Gorgonzola. It was delicious and we decided that would be the base of our ravioli.

Our search for a ravioli recipe filled with gorgonzola lead us to the most amazing meal that ever came out of our kitchen. We made Gorgonzola Ravioli with Walnut Brown Butter from Emeril. To say it was delicious is such an understatement. It was sooooooo amazing! Homemade pasta is so worth making - even if it is just a mess to make. It really makes for a fun Saturday night.

Raspberry Picking

I was recently visiting my family in Wisconsin and suggested that we go raspberry picking. We made raspberry jam, Hungarian Shortbread (with the raspberry jam that we made), and this Rustic Raspberry Tart. Yummy.

Hog Heaven!

I'll admit to being a lover of hot dogs. In a recent Food and Wine magazine, I read about these artisinal hot dogs served at The Farmers Diner inQueechee, Vermont. When I read that one of the ingredients in the hot dogs was bacon, I knew I had to try one soon. Queechee just happens to be on the drive to Killington, so when we went to our condo for Memorial Day weekend, we planned a lunch there. The special of the day just happened to be "HOG HEAVEN" - two hot dogs, wrapped in bacon, deep-fried, served on a bed of cole slaw on a buttered bun. It was as amazing as it sounds. I can't wait to go back.

The hot dogs are made at a local company called Vermont Smoke and Cure. I was just on their website, and they are temporarily sold out of the hot dogs temporarily due to their sudden fame from the Food and Wine article! Good for them! Over the weekend, we had a sample of the bratwurst when we stopped at the Woodstock Farmer's Market, we bought some of the bacon and had for breakfast one morning, and Craig had a slice of the ham with breakfast at the The Farmer's Diner on the way home. It was all so good. We love supporting small, local companies.

mmmmmmm.........morels are here!

I had been calling my local Whole Foods for several weeks asking about when they would be expecting the first morels of the season. It got to the point where I had to ask Craig to call because I was sure that the produce guy would recognize my voice and think - 'enough already, lady!" Sure enough, Craig calls and they are expecting a shipment the very next day. Time to plan a spring dinner menu for a Saturday night!

We started out the meal with a fava bean crostini. I had seen the fresh fava beans at the store for the past few weeks and had been wanting to try them. I never had before. This was a great recipe to try and I will be adding this recipe to my list of 'vegetarian friendly' appetizers. I splurged and bought a pretty decent bottle of olive oil for this dish as it was drizzled over the top of the pecorino, and I really could taste the difference.

For our main course, we had Fresh Pasta with Morel Mushroom sauce. OMG!!! Delicious!! This was the first time that we had made fresh pasta - other than a few failed appempts at ravioli. We received the pasta maker from my sister and family for our wedding (almost six years ago!) It was really easy (reading the directions helps - right, Craig?), and the pasta was sooo good. The morel sauce was just yummy. I would make this dish every Saturday night until the morels are gone for the season if I could.

With the pasta, we had this Grilled Romaine salad. Grilled Romaine is pretty hot right now, as is halloumi cheese. I had been wanting to try both. It was really good. It was a bit heavy to go with the pasta. I think that it would be a great summer lunch all on its own. I highly recommend trying grilling romaine!

Dessert was simple vanilla ice cream with a strawberry rhubarb sauce that I've been making the past few weeks. More spring favorites! Enjoy the spring produce that is available in your area while you can!