12/16/11- Our First Friday Dinner as an ENGAGED couple

Zucchini Au Gratin
Olive Oil for sauteeing, plus some Veg oil for suateeing, and a tiny bit of butter
1 yellow onion, cut in 1/2 and sliced
3.5 zucchini, sliced 1/4-inch thick or so-ish
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground paprika
1 cup milk
bread crumbs
1.5 cup grated Gruyere

Add the olive oil to the pan and saute the onions. Cut the zucchini into about 1/4 inches and cover in Vegetable oil (John's idea). Add the zucchini to the onions and saute for a few more minutes (until they look soft). Add half the shredded gruyere, milk, paprika, salt and pepper and cook in the pan. Transfer to a casserole dish, adding the bread crumbs, a little butter and the rest of the cheese to the top and bake at 350 while you make the lamb, leaving it in for more time while your handsome fiance cleans the kitchen. If you don't have a handsome fiance, good luck figuring out how long this is :)

Rosemary and Sweet Potato Lamb
2 garlic cloves
Homemade sweet potato bread crumbs
Dried rosemary
olive oil
Safflower oil
lamb chops

Place the garlic, bread crumbs, and rosemary in a bowl with olive oil. Press into one side of the lamb chops and cook in the safflower oil. While cooking, add the mixture to the other side. Place in a casserole dish, and bake for clean up time.

Caramelized Bananas and Vanilla Ice Cream
bananas
brown sugar
butter

Caramelize and serve with ice cream.

Review of Grilled Cheese

A few weeks ago, we had grilled cheese and caramelized shallots.  The review is a little delayed, as was the dinner. The night of dinner we were busy building a photobooth for Jen and Tim's wedding.  Who knows? Maybe we can get more use out of it :)
The reused ingredient was shallots.

Dinner will be judged on the following:

• Homemade Skills
• Tastiness 
• Other things accomplished

Homemade Skills: A +
John made no knead bread.  The bread had to sit overnight and then took some more time the next day.  As soon as the bread came out of the oven (we were pretty darn hungry, it was really late) we chowed down a little.  The bread was excellent. We may have not been able to wait to eat before we took the picture.

Tastiness: B
The flavors of the grilled cheese were fantastic. It was a little hard to eat, the bread slices were a  little thick. The shallots were a little too much of the same and a strong flavor.

Other things accomplished: 110%
John and I with the amazing help of his parents finished the photobooth! Curtains, software, hardware and more came together, then back apart to be loaded into the truck.  It might have taken a little bit longer than the 15 minutes per curtain I anticipated and maybe a little more fabric then we actually bought, but overall it turned out great.

The finished set up product:

French Onion Soup

Chef: John

So there is no special dinner this went with, but I wanted to share the recipe

French Onion Soup
1/2 cup unsalted butter
4 onions, sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 bay leaves
2 fresh thyme sprigs
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup red wine, about 1/2 bottle
3 heaping tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 quarts beef broth
1 baguette, sliced
1/2 pound grated cheese (swiss, grueyere, or jarlsberg)

Directions:

Melt the stick of butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, bay leaves, thyme, and salt and pepper and cook until the onions are very soft and caramelized, about 25 minutes. Add the wine, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the wine has evaporated and the onions are dry, about 5 minutes. Discard the bay leaves and thyme sprigs. Dust the onions with the flour and give them a stir. Turn the heat down to medium low so the flour doesn't burn, and cook for 10 minutes to cook out the raw flour taste. Now add the beef broth, bring the soup back to a simmer, and cook for 10 minutes. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

Ladle the soup into bowls, top each with 2 slices of bread and top with cheese. Put the bowls into the oven to toast the bread and melt the cheese.

(You can use the no-knead bread from earlier)

10/15/11

Chef: John
Reused ingredient: Turkey/Shallots
Meal: Grilled turkey and cheese with caramelized shallots

No knead Bread:

3 cups bread flour
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 teaspoon fine table salt (or 3/4 tablespoon of kosher salt)
1 1/2 cups warm waterCovered pot (five-quart or larger cast iron, Pyrex, ceramic, enamel...something that can go into a 450F oven.)

Directions:

1. Mix dough: The night before, combine all ingredients in a big bowl with a wooden spoon until the dough just comes together. It will be a shaggy, doughy mess. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit 12-20 hours on countertop.

2. Shape & preheat: The dough will now be wet, sticky and bubbly. With a wet spatula, dump the dough on a floured surface. Fold ends of dough over a few times with the spatula and nudge it into a ball shape. You can use your hands if you like, just keep your hands wet so that the dough does not stick. Generously dust a cotton towel (not terrycloth) with flour. Set dough seam side down on top of towel. Fold towel over the dough. Let it nap for 2 hours. When you've got about a half hour left, slip your covered pot into the oven and preheat to 450F.

3. Bake: Your dough should have doubled in size. Remove pot from oven. Holding towel, turn over and dump wobbly dough into pot, using your hands to get the dough off the towel. Doesn't matter which way it lands. Shake to even dough out. Cover. Bake 30 minutes. Uncover, bake another 15-20 minutes or until the crust is beautifully golden and middle of loaf is 210F. Remove and let cool on wired rack. If not eating right away, you can re-crisp crust in 350F oven for 10 minutes. Best way to eat it? Smear a warm slice with some good butter (Kerrygold and Lurpac are both found in your grocery stores, usually on top shelf)

From there I am pretty sure you can make a grilled cheese.

Carmalized Shallots:
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter
2 pounds fresh shallots, peeled, with roots intact
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons good red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Directions:

Melt the butter in a 12-inch ovenproof saute pan, add the shallots and sugar, and toss to coat. Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes, tossing occasionally, until the shallots start to brown. Add the vinegar, salt, and pepper and toss well.

Place the saute pan in the oven and roast for 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the shallots, until they are tender. Season to taste, sprinkle with parsley, and serve hot.

10/8/11 Dinner Review

Turkey Pie as I would call it. This was a wonderful dish, somewhat like Shepard's Pie, slightly better for you though :). Plus it was easy to remember as I am writing this post 1 month late.

This dinner can be rated on the following criteria:
1) Use of ingredients
2) Awesomeness of comfort food level
3) Presentation

First off this dish reused the Red Potatoes. You can neve
r go wrong with Red Mashed Potatoes in my book. The flavor, texture, etc... does not even compare to regular potatoes at all.

Rating: Pi + 1 stars (for non-math people, thats ~4.14)

Shepard's pie is one of my all time comfort foods. Lets consider that I was on the road for most of 2011, the first thing I want when I get home is a nice home cooked meal. You can't get any more home-cooked than meat and potatoes. So for that, this excelled.

Rating: A+

The presentation was a little difficult though. This dish looked like a melted container of icecream left on your counter. Not much you can do, but it is not the prettiest of dishes, unless you cooked it in an individual container (which we didn't get until next week).

Rating: Functional

Overall, I would definitely make this dish again, but using individual bowls would make this the ultimate to come home to from a road trip.

At least I know one of us had fun:

10/8/11

Chef: Wyetta
Reused ingredient: Red Potatoes
Meal: Turkey and Mashed Potato Casserole, Asparagus, and Baked Apples

Turkey and Mashed Potato Casserole: 
Ingredients: 
Ground Turkey
Ground Red Pepper and Italian Seasoning
2 cans of diced tomatoes
Shallots
Some basil and parsley
Fennel Seeds
Oregano
Garlic
Red Potatoes
Italian Seasoning
Milk
Italian 4 cheese blend

Directions: 
Cook the turkey with garlic, red pepper and Italian seasoning, when it's almost done drain then add the tomatoes, shallots, basil, parsley, and other spices.  In the meantime, boil the potatoes.  Let the meat mixture simmer and mash the potatoes with the milk, seasoning and cheese.  Place the meat mixture in a casserole dish and top with the mashed potatoes.  Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

Asparagus:
Ingredients: 
Olive Oil
Asparagus
Shallots
Salt
Pepper
Italian dressing

Directions: 
Cook everything in a pan on the stove.


Baked Apples: 
Ingredients: 
Fuji apples
Butter
Dried Cranberries
Almonds
Brown sugar

Directions: 
Chop the apples, mix the rest together and bake at 350.

9/24 Dinner Review

This week, we'll look at the following categories:

• Reused Ingredient
• Pre-dinner Activity
• Flavor combination
• Dessert

Reused Ingredient: 4 stars

John made a creamy lemon dressing.  It was a great dressing for a wedge salad, but we put it on a little thick. And once it was on there, it was stuck.  I would definitely make it again.

Pre-dinner Activity: 15-12
John and I watched football on the porch, drank some beer and let the briscit cook in the slow cooker.  We had classic football food and cheered the Irish on to a victory!

Image from urbanmediatoday.com

Flavor Combination: A
Seriously, everything went together very well. I mean, I guess meat, potatoes and salad is pretty standard, but the homemade salad dressing and the special potato topping and everything covered in bacon. It's hard to go wrong covering everything in bacon.

Dessert: B
Believe it or not, the chocolate cake was a little rich.  Yep, I said it.  Without the ice cream, it might have actually been to rich for me to finish (the red wine helped with that too).  Don't worry - ice cream saved the day.

Other fun stuff? This definitely made up for the lamb fire disaster. Oh, and I got to eat dinner with this guy: