Eggs + Air = Deliciousness

Even though I disdain Valentine’s Day as a “made-up” holiday, I am willing to use it as an excuse to make a delicious dinner.

The highlight of this year’s valentine’s meal was the souffle at the end.

Paul and I have a very special relationship with souffle. It was the dessert we had at our very fancy, way-out-of-our-price-range, first anniversary dinner. It is now funny to think of how overwhelmed we were by the sheer fanciness of everything.

It was a prix fixe menu. Not wanting to appear too unsophisticated, we ordered iced tea instead of sodas. I have no recollection of what appetizers or salads we had, though I know they were there. For the entrees, I went with the pepper-crusted steak while Paul thoroughly enjoyed the duck. And then we had dessert.

This was the first time ever that we had been required to commit to a dessert before the meal even began. But, as our very kind and patient waiter explained, souffles take time.

The dessert of the day was the Grand Marnier Souffle. We each had one placed in front of us, then the waiter plunged two spoons into the middle of them to make way for a dollop of whipped cream.

We were enchanted and impressed, and loved every moment of it. And ever since then, the souffle has held a special place in our hearts.

At that time, with my limited cooking skills, I never even considered trying to recreate the dish. Eight years ago I was braver and made my first souffle for our 10th anniversary.(Holy Cow! How OLD am I?) It was very egg-y tasting. Think puffy, sweet scrambled eggs. Not a good thing.

But over the years, my cooking skills have continued to improve, and I had a fridge-full of fresh, beautiful eggs that were calling to me. So I tried again, and it worked.

The recipe I used can be found here, so I won’t retype it. The only think I did differently was not using orange oil, since I didn’t have any.

Otherwise, it was really easy. Buttered and sugared the ramekins, and made the recipe up to the point of beating the egg whites. Then, after dinner, it was a simple matter of beating and folding in the egg whites, spooning everything into the ramekins, and baking.

And savoring.

Setting the World on Fire … well, my steak at least

When I started really cooking, it was kind of a big deal if I made a meal that had nothing to do with boxes. I remember several years ago purchasing a box of roasted potato seasoning mix. Seriously. I cut up potatoes and then sprinkled this box of seasoning over them. What an eye-opener it was for me when I one day realized that I could use the spices in my own cupboard and achieve the same, if not better, results!

But I would do things like spend hours making Chicken Cordon Bleu, and then serve it with Rice-a-Roni and canned green beans on the side. Or make the most delicious and fluffy mashed potatoes from scratch, and then drown them in a packaged gravy mix.

Now, I’m not so snobby as to say that convenience foods don’t have a place. Even as I type this, I must admit that there are cheap, frozen pizzas in my freezer and canned chili in the pantry (that’s for Paul’s chili dogs). But I have gotten to the point where I realize that for the most part, someone with even a moderate amount of experience in the kitchen can make a meal entirely from scratch that will WOW almost anyone.

It sometimes just takes a bit of bravery.

Last month, I got into a conversation with Temperance, one of the founders of Recipes to Rival. I have been particularly lax in participation of the recipes over the last couple of months. Part of that is because of my crazy life. But I was also a little uncertain of some of the recipes that were chosen. Not that I thought they were bad choices…don’t misunderstand me! It was more the fact that I didn’t know if my family would eat them, and it sure seemed like a whole lot of work for something that was such a gamble.

Basically, I was being a wuss.

But during this conversation with Temperance I realized that I really didn’t have a right to complain if I wasn’t prepared to do something about it. And when Temperance told me that her planned co-host for March’s challenge had to back out, I felt compelled to step up and put my money where my mouth was. So I became March’s Recipes to Rival co-host.

Because it was so last minute, we had a very short amount of time in which to choose a recipe. I wanted something that had a classic technique that would challenge, but not frighten (too badly). Temperance wanted something special for her birthday month. After a couple days of debate, inspiration hit.

Flambe’!


Temperance thought it sounded like a great idea, a quick recipe search found a delicious sounding Steak Diane Flambe’ recipe, and we were set. Ready to light the world on fire. Or at least, beef and mushrooms on fire.

It was fun. I had a hard time getting a good picture of the fire, it doused itself out so quickly, but the results were stupendously delicious. A couple weeks later I flambe’d some mushrooms for dinner and it was just as good.

I guess that means I need to make sure there’s always brandy in the house.

Oh, the sacrifices I make.

But, what this showed me is that while flambe’ sounds scary, it’s really pretty approachable and quite fun. I look forward to an opportunity to Flambe’ For Friends. (Sounds like a fundraising event, doesn’t it?)

Here’s the official link to the Recipes to Rival Steak Diane Flambe’ post, recipe included.

Enjoy!

THE FINE PRINT DISCLAIMER: I do not require that you flambé, if you choose to flambé and burn down your kitchen, don’t sue me. If you choose to flambé try and get a picture (I recommend getting someone to help). Remember when playing with fire keep a fire extinguisher close and never use water on a cooking fire.

A Dinner with my Valentine

I dislike Valentine’s Day. When I was a kid, it was SO MUCH FUN. After all, the combination of pink hearts, paper doilies, crafts and candy brought out the girly-girl in me. But once I got past elementary school, the holiday started to lose its appeal.

Since I’ve had kids, I’ve gotten some of the crafty Valentine’s fun back in my life, as you can see from the winning 5th grade “Funniest Valentine’s Bag” above. But really, I’m perfectly fine if the day passes without a single mention of it. Most years we have no celebration at all. It’s too commercialized for my taste.

This year, however, Paul used Valentine’s Day as the excuse to get me a wonderful, delicious present. A bottle of deliciously aged balsamic vinegar and another of black truffle oil. So of course, I had to create a meal worthy of this deliciousness.

We started off our dinner with shrimp sushi that had nothing to do with either the balsamic or the truffle oil. But it was sure good!

Then, we moved to the salad, which was dressed with the oil and vinegar combination. All I have to say, is Holy Crap! The combination makes for a fantastic dressing! We demolished our salads. Not a leaf was left.

Continuing on, we moved to the main course — Rib Steaks with Balsamic Mushrooms, sauteed spinach with garlic and baked potato. After the sushi and the salad, we were pretty stuffed. Although everything was good, we couldn’t even eat half of our steaks.

We paced the meal out while watching When Harry Met Sally. First sushi, then we started the movie. A Pause after the airplane scene for our salads, and another one after the “I’ll have what she’s having” scene for our steaks. When the movie was over, it was dessert time.

And dessert was Amaretto Souffle with Balsamic-Drizzled Strawberries and Amaretto whipped cream. You’ll notice how yellow the souffle is…that’s cause they’re made with eggs from our wonderful hens. Oh, the wonder of real eggs!

I’ll post later with the recipe for the souffle. Now that I’ve made one and it turned out so well, I’ll be making them often.

Sighs

This has been a strange week for me. It was my birthday, and it hit me kinda hard. I’m getting old. It put me into a bit of a funk most of the week, and I’m afraid that my family took the brunt of it. Because of timing, my birthday dinner is postponed until next weekend when Nick will prepare a gourmet feast of my favorite foods.

In preparation of one of the courses, I spent today making beef stock with bones that have resided in our freezer for a couple of months now. I thought of taking a photo of the stock, but there’s nothing photogenic about it. It’s just brown.

In an effort to get me out of my funk, Paul and I took a drive last Sunday. Not having a particular place we wanted to go, we just drove north along a couple of smaller highways.

We passed through many small towns, passed a lot of vehicles that had Christmas trees tied to the roofs, and thoroughly enjoyed the scenery. At one point, we pulled into a little parking lot and watched the North Cascade Elk Herd for a while. I wish they were closer, but the scenery was beautiful.

Here’s the same photo, zoomed in so the elk are visible:

We also saw probably 10 bald eagles, but none of them cooperated for a photo shoot. But the river where we spotted 5 of them at the same time was amazing with the fog hovering over the water.

When we got home, the boys had gotten the Christmas decorations out, put the lights on the house and set the tree up. So we spent the rest of the evening decorating the tree and my funk was gone.

Then a couple of days later I looked out my back window and sighed deeply with contentment. After all, THIS is my backyard.

I am blessed.