Wed (Feb 11): We had pork, fennel, and roasted red pepper stew. It went on top of rice, so I guess it really wasn't a stew. I liked the fennel, onion,s and red pepper and the sauce was good too. Using rice was a nice touch also. Unfortunately the pork was dry and tastless. I'm not really sure why, its a slow cooker shouldn't everything be juicy. I may have over-browned the diced pork, or maybe we chose the wrong cut at the store. I think we could significantly improve this dish, we just need to give some serious thought on how to improve the pork.
Thurs: We went to Baja Frash before the hockey game. Tacos are always a solid choice.
Friday: Anna worked Saturday night, so we had our valentines dinner. We cook quite often, so its a nice opportunity to have a great meal without the work or cleanup. We decided to be somewhat more budget concious this year, so instead of going someplace like Margots, we went to the Commerce Street Grille. Its the restaurant attached to the Renaissance Hotel. They advertised a special at the hockey game of a valentines dinner, bottle of wine, free valet for $75. The food was what I expected for the cost. The salads were standard, nothing inventive/creative. For main course I had grouper stuffed with lobster and Anna had filet mignon and bacon wrapped scallops. At first I thought my dish was a bust, the grouper by itself was not anything special. However, it became fantastic once I included some of the lobster stuffing with each bite. I especially enjoyed the spice to the lobster stuffing, I think there may have been diced jalepeno in it. Sides included roasted asparagus and dirty rice. The asparagus was good, and the rice seemed more of an afterthought of trying to include a starch on the plate. Dessert was fantastic. The plate had a long skinny dark chocolate brownie with chocolate moose. It was a great combination of bitter chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate. A big thin sheet of chocolate in the shape of a heart and a layered chocolate "pastry" (I think it had marzipan in it) were on the plate. There was also a few strawberries and blueberries. The wine was a cheap pinot noir. I like pinot noir, even cheap ones, I just ignored the bitey finish. When we drove home we stopped by the wine store and picked up a bottle of rose champagne. We had never had a champagne that was a rose until our honeymoon and wanted to have it again.
Saturday: Anna tried to stay in bed to prepare for work, but ended up getting up at 3pm because she was hungary and had some leftovers. I didn't want to make anything major since she would only pick at it before she left for work at 6:15pm. I picked up already cooked chicken breast "fajita style", and we had burrito/taco/tostada thing. Not really sure exactly what to call it, it was just your standard meat, cheese, salsa, sour cream semi-folded into tortillas.
Sunday: We baked frozen lasagna. Is there a better frozen lasagna than Stouffers? I can't imagine that there would be. One of these days I'm going to try to make lasagna from scratch. I just haven't because it would be quite involved, and I'm happily satisfied with Stouffers.
Monday: Hockey game, but Anna had to do a peer review at work. We had to drive straight to the game. We ate dinner at the arena. The Sommet Center doesn't seemed to have any impressive food options. I had bbq pork nachos. Anna used our last meal voucher and got a slice of pizza.
Tuesday: Anna worked. We had frozen pizza. There is one Kroger near us that carries a wider selection of frozen pizzas. We managed to find a Spicy Chicken Supreme from Digorno's. I don't think any of the other nearby stores (including some other Krogers) carries it.
Wednesday: I prepared fettucini in spicy cream sauce Tuesday night, so Anna would have something other than frozen food before work. We got this recipe from my sister-in law, Cara. The cream sauce includes onion, bell pepper, jalepeno, and garlic. That may be my favorite combination to include in entres. We always seem to have these vegetables on hand. Anna has always made this dish before, this was my first time. I didn't realize how involved the recipe was, there was even a step of tempering the sauce with sour cream. I only learned the concept of tempering recently, so I was shocked that this recipe needed it. Tempering is a method of adding a dairy product or eggs to a hot liquid. Essentially when you want to avoid a potential of curdling. Instead of directly adding the dairy/eggs to the hot liquid, you slowly stir in spoonfuls of hot liquid to the dairy/egg slowly raising its temp. After about a cup you've finished tempering and you can then add the dairy/egg mixture to the hot liquid.
Upcoming Meals:
Thurs (Feb 19): Hockey game, we've had 6 home games this month, that is a lot. We'll either go to Blackstones or Baja Fresh.
Friday: Shepherd's pie. Well not the real version, the one we're making is more a caserole with crescent rolls bake on top. We're using some venison my Dad skillfully acquired back in November. Anna's mother, Jane, is coming to visit. A lot of times when we have visitors, we try to plan a special meal. We had already decided on shepherd's pie though. While it isn't fancy, or contains any advanced cooking method, its a great comfort food and thus we didn't want to change our plans. I've been excited about it all week.
Saturday: We may be going out to the movies and thus may have dinner out. Not sure though, we may put something together.
