When you meet your mentor… you must cook her food

David2 Comments on When you meet your mentor… you must cook her food

Barbeque season is upon us…  and with that comes, surprisingly, barbeques.  Burgers… steaks…. chops…  Then again were recently to the AGO, to hear Shawn’s hero Madhur Jaffrey, talk about Indian cuisines and culture, as part of their Royal Arts of Jodhpur exhibit…..  Maybe a nice Indian barbeque???

Oh what the heck… how about a little name dropping. Here is Shawn getting one of his first cookbooks signed, by Madhur herself, after saying “oh… you brought the big one!” read more

Getting back to basics

David3 Comments on Getting back to basics
The sun, the wind and the Man With the Cloak

Our trio, although always in touch, has not gotten together as much as we wish, but gardening and barbeque season is upon us.  This gives us a good excuse to reconnect and gather for one of our first barbecue dinners of the season. Having just been in the south, we might just borrow a dish or two from the south.  This week Monday Night Dining was on Tuesday, mostly because the weather looked better than Monday…. For our non-Ontario readers spring in the part of the world has been cold and wet, or if I may quote the weather channel “this is crap!” read more

A surprise guest…

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Flaming Gingerbread Steamed Pudding

When planning a dinner, it is important to know the number of guests, and their allergies and dislikes….  But this week we had a possible last minute special guest. This was very unusual and exciting.  The rest of the guest list including our trio, Jennifer, Terry, and Greg. The question remains…..  will we have a special guest. 

As it happens the stars aligned and we do have our 7th guest….  Am I the only one that remembers that video game?  It was great, and hopefully our dinner will be as well.  So I did a little research on Liz ,and discovered her Irish heritage, which decided the direction of our menu. read more

Spiders, pumpkins and soles…

David2 Comments on Spiders, pumpkins and soles…

Jack-o-lanterns

Just climb the stairs… past the skulls and jack-o-lanterns and you will enter a place of scary tales, giant spiders, ghostly apparitions, and warm hospitality.  Monday Night Dining has a special Halloween treat.

Tonight our trio welcomes our favorite readers from our last Halloween dinner, Norm and Dermot, and welcomes Andrea and Bruce.  We started the evening with a glass of pink bubbly, that took on a spooky hue in the candle light, and got caught up on life. Meanwhile the ghoulish chefs were huddled round the cauldron, to see what new concoction they could summon forth. Would it be eye of newt flambé or bat wing fricassee???  No… Tonight we start with Jack-o-lantern soup with roasted pumpkin seeds, sage pesto and a splash of heavy cream, served in roasted pumpkins.

Pumpkin soup, with roasted pumpkin seeds and sage pesto

Pumpkin soup, with roasted pumpkin seeds and sage pesto
Pumpkin soup, with roasted pumpkin seeds and sage pesto
Pumpkin soup, with roasted pumpkin seeds and sage pesto

The soup had a lovely rich texture, but the sage pesto really set it off, with a fresh zing (especially since the sage was from the garden).  An added bonus was the aroma of the roasted pumpkin bowls, plus we could scrape up some of the roasted pumpkin, for added flavour.

Our main course has a bit of a story. One of our guests is a pescatarian, so we wanted a fish course. Shawn found a recipe, that had potential and we tested the recipe the weekend before…..  I have a feeling that it inspired Shawn, because in no time he had changed the recipe into what will be a regular offering on our menus… Steal your sole lasagna.. or seafood lasagna with sole, ratatouille and a seafood cream sauce.

Seafood lasagna with sole, ratatouille and seafood cream sauce
Seafood lasagna with sole, ratatouille and seafood cream sauce
Seafood lasagna with sole, ratatouille and seafood cream sauce

If the trial run of the dish was good, the final version was inspired! The fish was cooked beautifully and paired with the ratatouille and red and yellow pepper sauces perfectly.

For dessert, we went back and forth on whether to do a fun Halloween dessert, or stick with more formal. The deciding factor was that a little bat told us our friend Bruce had just had a birthday, which means a Halloween birthday cake, so both traditional and whimsical. We served a Bloody red velvet spider web cake.

Red velvet spider web cake
Red velvet spider web cake
Red velvet spider web cake
Red velvet spider web cake
Red velvet spider web cake

This was a fun cake to make. Traditionally red velvet cake would have a cream cheese or buttercream frosting, but since those options are not firm enough to stretch the marshmallow webs across, we used a dark chocolate buttercream, tinted black, which supported the webs better. Topped off with a spider created from molding chocolate and candy eyes and spooky colour changing candles and we had a dessert suited to the occasion.

Once dinner was over, we moved to the haunted salon and our guests shared readings of seasonal poems. It was blustery outside, but tonight our jack-o-lanterns warded off the goblins, so we could enjoy food, friendship and spooky stories. Well a few goblins got past our sentinels, with hearty cries of TRICK OR TREAT, but they were appeased with generous gifts of candy.

Girls Weekend in Wine Country

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Alex Valley – Wine Country

We never get invited to Girls weekend. I think the reason is obvious.  But when you are invited to cater dinner, you can get an inside track.  This would be a bit of a test of our abilities and flexibility, as there were a few twists and turns to be navigated.

The idea started, as many things do, at the dentist…  Shawn was asked if he would be interested in catering a meal for a girl’s weekend. We didn’t know how many people, but it would be less formal, with a good group of people and the place they had rented looked great.  The menu planning was coming along, but then came a few bumps…  One vegetarian, well that was not an issue, since there would still be lots for her to eat. Then we were informed of a few dislikes and altered the menu accordingly.  The big monkey wrench came just a few weeks before the event.  The owners of the house the girls had rented had been sold.  This left them scrambling to find a new spot, not only to eat, but to stay for the weekend.  They ended up finding a lovely spot, but we were going in without knowing what to expect. the house was practically brand new. would they have enough cookware, serving pieces, or even plates???  Much of our menu was slated for the barbecue and we could not confirm until the day before, if one existed.  We had to have a backup plan for almost everything.  How would it all workout?  Well we took everything that we might need, including borrowing some serving pieces from Steph, some nice disposable plates and cutlery, and some of our own pots and pans.

We received news that they had found a barbecue in the garage, so we should be fine…. Or were we.  We found the house, without issue (there were enough vehicles in front, so we knew which one it was.) The guests were off on a bus tour, so we had the place to ourselves to get set up. The appliances were nice, and lots of space to work with, so things were looking up.  Once we unloaded and reconnoitered the area, I immediately located the grill.  We moved it to the deck, hooked up the tank and…. well not much of anything.  Tried with a lighter, but no luck.  Shawn mentioned that while carrying the tank it was light.  I remembered a gas bar around the corner, so went off to swap the tank. With a full tank and the smell of propane imbuing the air, I lit the flame, which promptly blew itself out….  Finally I took the BBQ apart and reassembled it properly, did a quick adjustment and lo and behold, we have made fire!!!  Just in case I left it burning on low, which also got rid of the new BBQ smell.

When the guests arrived, we opened to door to a loud scream, from the lady who was trying to get the key out of the lock box attached to the door handle and 14 women, each carrying a case of wine and other purchases.  We then helped them carry in the rest of their bounty from the day. Our quiet prep time went up a few much-needed decibels, the boom box that up until this time had been underused playing light jazz, was commandeered to play the hits of the 80’s, 90’s and now, and the wine and bourbon began to pour. Finally it was starting to seem like a party, and about time too.

Wine purchases

This was not just a bus tour, but a wine tour, with food pairings.  Our guests started drinking at 11 AM and many had been nibbling all day.

This of course raised the question of “Will anyone be hungry?”  Luckily they were primed and ready for their meal. Once the guests had settled in to the living room, and other parts of the house, with either a glass of wine or a Mint Julep, we served the appetizer from the coffee table, savoury rosemary parmesan Madeline, warm gougere piped with Mornay sauce and fresh crostini with homemade fig jam, goat cheese, fresh figs and thyme.

Rosemary parmesan Madeleines
Crostini with fig jam, goat cheese fresh figs and thyme
Gougeres with Mornay sauce
Rosemary parmesan Madeleines

It seems we worried for nothing…  The crostini was such a big hit that we had to whip up another platter on the fly.  We just love when people appreciate what we do. Which brings me to an amusing anecdote. Originally we had planned to drop the dog off for the day, but once we decided to stay the night and the ever resourceful Shawn found a pet friendly hotel, we brought the little guy along. the truck was packed with foodstuffs, and when making a quick stop,  a baguette slid off the cooler and into the back seat.  I made a mental note to put it back, when we stopped…..  Our first stop was to visit Shawn’s parents to wish his Dad a happy Father’s Day. I went back to the truck to move the bread, only to find over a third of a loaf missing.  Enzo would not touch the food in the back of the truck, but when it is laying on the seat, next to his bed, he probably thought it was a nappy time snack.  He didn’t even look guilty.  Luckily right behind that gas bar, where I got the propane, was a grocery store, so we could replace the baguette, and we needed it too.

By this time one of the ladies was lying flat on the floor and another was doing charades using only a scarf, to act out the clues, and doing surprisingly well at it.

The original plan was to serve the salad course separately, but with space constraints, we decided to go for it and serve all at once.  The main was a grilled caesar salad, with a homemade dressing, with rosemary bread sticks, grilled chicken ballotine, stuffed with spinach and apricots, Tri-colour farfalle, with peas and fava beans in a cream sauce and veggie kebobs.

Grilled Caesar Salad
Grilled Caesar Salad
Grilled Caesar Salad with Rosemary bread sticks
Rosemary bread sticks
Grilled Veggie kebobs
Chicken ballotine stuffed with apricots, currants and spinach, and haricot verts.

Beet, Spinach and Carrot Pasta
Made into stripes
Cutting Farfalle
Farfalle in the colours of the Italian Flag

The salad was such a huge hit, we should have made more. We made up for that with the amount of chicken and pasta we prepared.  Chicken Ballotine is a de-boned chicken, all except the leg bone, the 2 halves are separated and each is rolled up around a filling.  Shawn asked me how many one chicken would serve, I responded thinking how much one “Ballotine” would serve. Shawn took me at my word and prepped almost double what I was thinking.  We had delicious leftovers….

I have often said that Shawn has a knack for organization. It has come in handy on many occasions.  With all of the prep for a larger group than we are used to, and a very small kitchen, Shawn started prepping desserts weeks ahead and hiding them in Steph’s freezer.  For once Steph did not find the hidden gems and partake of them, as far as I know.  All that had to be made for the event itself was the signature dessert, the Zucotto.  This along side homemade butter tarts, date squares and brownies, allowed for a selection of small bites.

Zucotto
Dates Squares
Butter Tarts
Brownies
Zucotto

When I saw one guest slice off a very thin piece of zucotto and eat it from her hand, because it had no calories that way, I knew it was a hit.  After joining our guests for a glass of wine, while they enjoyed their sweets, we cleaned up, packed up headed back to our hotel. This day did have a few challenges, but by being flexible and having a backup plan, we got through without too much difficulty.  We also had a great bunch of ladies, who hooted, sang, danced, drank and ate. We finally got invited to girls’ weekend and found out that it’s just great fun with friends.

 

A dinner(s) for Charity

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Pax Chrisit Chorale Fundraising Gala

Some time ago, we had auctioned our Monday Night Dining crew, to help raise Monday for our performance of Elgar’s The Apostles, by offering a 3 course dinner for up to 6 people, prepared and served in your own home.  The bidding went so well, we decided to offer 2 meals.  It turns out both of the winners were buying the dinner to celebrate their wives birthdays, so I think cake is in order.

Our first dinner was for Tom and Anne, whose house we have been to on a few occasions. This did take a little pressure off, since we had a good idea of the layout, and the fact that they have a primo stove. After setting out a menu and prepping as much as we could ahead of time, we arrived early to set up and prep. Turns out we were so well prepared, that we had time to join our hosts for a cocktail, before the last guests arrived.  After the guests had assembled and had a chance to decompress, they gathered around the table to enjoy a butternut squash tortellini, with sage and brown butter.

Drying pasta
Roasted butternut squash tortellini with sage and brown butter
Roasted butternut squash tortellini with sage and brown butter
Roasted butternut squash tortellini with sage and brown butter
Roasted butternut squash tortellini with sage and brown butter

The homemade tortellini have a rich yet delicate flavour, which does not get overpowered by the buttery sauce. The fried sage leaves and a lovely fragrant note, and a bit of a crunch to the dish.

The next dish has a bit of a story to it…..  Although Shawn has become quite adept at deboning poultry, quails are rather finicky.  While searching for some supplies we needed, online he found out that one of the large butchers at St Lawrence Market carries semi-boneless quails.  This could be a real time and swear jar saver. After perusing the market and finding some wonderful ingredients  (see previous post) we found out the quails are only carried at certain times, unless special ordered. With a little more research we did find a specialty grocer, that would bring them it, just in time for our dinner.  When the arrived, Shawn realized that they had been spatchcocked, or cut open down the backbone. Luckily we had backup quails (well who doesn’t?)  Shawn set off deboning the quails and the new arrivals would be for a Monday Night Dinner. After our little adventures procuring quails, we served semibonless quail stuffed with veal, pork, porcini mushrooms and chestnuts, over celeriac.parsnip puree and sautéed spinach.

Deboned Quails
Stuffed Quail
Quail stuffed with veal, pork, porcini and chestnut. celeriac/parsnip puree and sauteed spinach
Quail stuffed with veal, pork, porcini and chestnut. celeriac/parsnip puree and sauteed spinach
Quail stuffed with veal, pork, porcini and chestnut. celeriac/parsnip puree and sauteed spinach

It’s amazing what you can stuff into a quail…. The sauce was made from boiling down the tiny quail bones, to make a quail stock, which was flavoured with a little veal demi-glace (which just happened to be in the freezer). Someone recently told me about a product called bone broth powder, to add to soups and things, because no one has time to boil down bones…..  It seems we are always fighting over who gets to take the bones or carcass home. There’s always time to make broth…  If not today, freeze your bones for another day.

For dessert, we made one of our favorites, the Persian Love Cake.

Quail stuffed with veal, pork, porcini and chestnut. celeriac/parsnip puree and sauteed spinach
Candied rose petals
Persian Love Cake

I always tell people this cake is more about fragrance than taste. If you like overly sweet in your face desserts, this is not it, but the subtle flavours of rose-water and cardamom, with the fragrance of candied rose petals and a crunch from the pistachios are a true combination of flavour, texture and fragrance, but when you bite into a crushed cardamom seed and get that burst of aroma in your nose, it is a revelation. Yes, as I said, this is one of our favorites.

Now normally about this time, we are finishing the clean up and quietly exiting, but since we know most of the guests so well, we were “encouraged” to join in for dessert, a move they may have regretted, as it left less cake for second helpings.  With the first of our dinners done we wish a happy birthday to Anne.

A few weeks later, we had our second of the charity dinners, for Bruce and Jan, in honour of Jan’s birthday. The layout of this kitchen was a joy to work in, with space to prep and serve, and an amazing stove to work with. Once the prep was complete, we were ready for guests. Luckily, we had practiced the first course already, so we had the butternut squash torellini for the first course, but added crushed amoretti cookies this time, for a bit of texture.

The main for this meal had a few changes, along the way, when we found out one of the guests was a pesactarian, we came up with something quite special…. and tricky.  The main was a potato crusted sea bass, with pomme puree, green pea puree and sage vinaigrette.

Green peas
Ricing potatoes
sieving potatoes
shucking peas
potato wrapped sea bass

searing the potatoes
potato crusted sea bass, with pomme puree, green pea puree and sage vinagrette

The difficulty here, is to get the potato “scales” crisp, and to get the fish cooked, at the same time. The pea puree added a nice vibrant background for the fish and Shawn’s sage vinaigrette gave a fresh zing overall.

For the dessert, since it was a birthday, we needed a birthday cake.  After perusing the blog, our host decided on the 12 layer mocha Marjolaine.

souflfle and sponge layers
12 layer mocha marjolaine
12 layer mocha marjolaine
12 layer mocha marjolaine
12 layer mocha marjolaine

Fine-textured sponge-cake, soaked in espresso syrup, plays off of crisp hazelnut meringue, while the coffee and mocha buttercreams intensify the richness of a collapsed chocolate soufflé. When complete, the cake looks heavy, but is really quite light and rich. A special cake for a special occasion.

As the guests settled in with dessert, we packed up and made our way home.  This was truly another successful fundraising dinner, with a delightful group of people to cook for, and of course happy birthday to Jan…

 

A trip to St Lawrence Market

Shawn2 Comments on A trip to St Lawrence Market

Inspiration for menus come from different places.  At times we have a dish that we want to try and then match up other courses to go with it.  Sometimes the weather just puts us in a mood, for comfort food, or a particular cuisine. At times it is a challenge that we are given, often by dislikes or allergies.  This week we were inspired by 3 things….  good ingredients, comfort food, and a lot of leftovers.

We have a couple of important dinners coming up and are planning the menus, so we took a trip to the St Lawrence Market, to source some of the ingredients. When passing one of our favorite butchers, Shawn asked “did you see that nice rack?”  For once we were thinking the same thing.  Beautiful Ontario lamb (I know what you were thinking).  That lead us to other areas of the market to pickup fresh produce and of course a snack. I can’t wait to come back when more of the local produce is ready.

With so much on the go lately, we just had our trio and Jennifer, but in hindsight, we had enough food for several more. Portions always look smaller when you buy them in a large space. For the appetizer, I think Shawn was feeling nostalgic, so he whipped up a batch of his tomato sauce, and we rolled out some ricotta gnocchi.  Feeling extra Italian, we also rolled out meatballs, with pork, veal and beef.  We often try to keep meals a bit light on Monday, due to rehearsal afterwards, but sometimes, you just need something that will stick to your ribs.

Ricotta Gnocchi
Ricotta gnocchi with meatballs
RIcotta gnocchi with meatballs

I have to say that this portion would have made a decent sized main. Steph was thinking ahead and reserved some of hers for lunch.

For the main, we roasted the racks of lamb, with fresh herbs, and served it atop the almost famous pomme puree, with sautéed mushrooms and sautéed heirloom carrots, surrounded by a red wine reduction. I love that almost everything on this plate came from the market.

I say to anyone who does not like lamb, try it again, done a different way, because this was sumptuous.

After our last Monday Night Dining experience, I was heard to utter “that’s a lot of Budino!”  I really must remember to cut the recipe down, because as much as we like it, we really don’t eat a lot of dessert during the week. So we decided on a Monday Night Dining first…. leftovers!  The best part with having the dessert, in the bag, is that we could spend more time planning Steph’s garden and the challenges of staging The Apostles. So over tea and Salted Caramel Budino, we ended the dining part of our evening and headed to rehearsal.

Caramel Budino with salted caramel sauce and Chantilly cream

If you do not have a ticket for this show, do visit the Pax Christi Chorale website to learn more.  Even if you do have tickets, follow the link, as the program notes are available, with some background on the work and full libretto.

Edward Elgar

With Meredith Hall, Krisztina Szabó, Brett Polegato, Lawrence Wiliford, Daniel Lichti, Michael Uloth and the Etobicoke School of the Arts chamber choir
Elgar’s deeply moving “English Passion” and the prequel to The Kingdom.

Saturday, April 29, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, April 30, 3:00 p.m.
Grace Church on-the-Hill
300 Lonsdale Road, Toronto

 

 

 

We need how many Chickens?

David2 Comments on We need how many Chickens?

When people ask “What did you do this weekend?” the answers do change, but usually it involves some cooking.  Whether prepping for Monday, trying out a new dish, or cuisine, or just getting food in the fridge and freezer, for the weeks ahead,  there is always cooking.  This weekend was no exception, and one of the things we made (see above), just happens to be the appetizer for this week’s Monday Night Dining experience. So with our trio and guest Trish, we enjoyed Veal tortellini with a fried sage and butter sauce.

Making veal tortellini
Making veal tortellini

We have been making tortellini for a while, but I think this was one of our better efforts. The filling to pasta ratio was really on point, and the lighter sauce let the pasta be the star. A little shaved parmesan on top finished the dish nicely.

Our main featured Shawn’s knife skills, as he deboned 2 chickens, and stuffed them to make Chicken ballottine stuffed with apricots, currants and spinach, served with haricot verts.

Chicken ballotine stuffed with apricots, currants and spinach, and haricot verts.

Unfortunately the making of pics, were very blurry, due to the bad lighting in our kitchen, combined with the speed that Shawn’s knife glides through, separating meat from sinew and bone. The final product was really  amazing. The spinach is sautéed ahead, so it is nice and mild, the apricots and currants add sweetness and the cider gastrique added a bit of tartness and almost stole the show. I could eat this again and again, which looks to be in our future, since we had 2 whole chickens… We served a Cave Springs Dolomite Pinot Noir, which I think played well off the sauce.

Our friend Trish has been under the weather for a while, and this would be her first night back to rehearsals. Let me tell you Trish being unable to sing must have been a tough go, because she lives for it.  It’s so nice to have her back in the fold and ready to tackle Elgar’s The Apostles. Here comes my shameless plug… There are tickets available, just click the link in the previous sentence.  This one will sell out and is not to be missed, so don’t.

BUT…  being on a schedule, we could not chat all night and with our herbal tea, we enjoyed a favorite of Shawn’s, Caramel Budino with salted caramel sauce.

Caramel Budino with salted caramel sauce and Chantilly cream
Caramel Budino with salted caramel sauce and Chantilly cream
Caramel Budino with salted caramel sauce and Chantilly cream

Steph is always saying that if we blog a cooking disaster, that it might spark interest (she said controversy might be even better, but we will tackle how long to cook broccoli another time).  I did have a minor disaster with this one.  I had to measure out the cream ahead of time to have enough for the other elements and make sure we had some, for the dessert, but it was left out and the kitchen was warm, which resulted in my Chantilly cream breaking and ending up in the bin. The pictures you see are from a re-plating, the next day. I love the fact that we used Shawn’s “ma-mere’s” crystal, and my great-grandmother’s silver to serve this dessert. The only issue is, there is a lot of Budino, and I mean a lot.  If Luke were still here, that would not be a problem.

Time is fleeting, so we must bustle off to rehearsal,  glad of the company of friends and the chance to share good food, conversation and of course a little wine.

 

 

A Bon Voyage

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This week marks the last week that our friend Luke will be able to join us for Monday Night Dining, at least for quite some time.  He will be heading state side, and then back to Australia, to start a new chapter in his life.  He has already had a few farewell get togethers, but we wanted to send him off in Monday Night Dining style.

We started out with a Seared scallop, with beurre blanc, hot sauce and tomato salsa.

Seared scallop with beurre blanc, hot sauce and tomato salsa
Seared scallop with beurre blanc, hot sauce and tomato salsa

Shawn is really becoming an expert at getting the scallops just right, and even without filling the apartment with smoke. The sauce on this one was so good, that I had to get out spoons, so we could get every drop.

For the main, we served Pan fried sea bass, with caramelized beets, cauliflower puree and sauce vierge.

Pan fried sea bass, with caramelized beets, cauliflower puree and sauce vierge
Pan fried sea bass, with caramelized beets, cauliflower puree and sauce vierge
Pan fried sea bass, with caramelized beets, cauliflower puree and sauce vierge

We were watching Masterchef Junior, and they had the kids cooking a dish similar to this.  It looked so good, we decided to put our own spin on it.  The fish was beautiful (from City Fish) the plating was colourful and the flavours amazing. Steph brought a bottle of Thirty Bench – 2013 Small Lot Chardonnay.  This was a surprisingly crisp and light chardonnay, that did not overpower the delicate fish.

Our dessert tonight was a vanilla panna cotta with Blood oranges.

Panna Cotta has been one of our go to eggless desserts. The best part is that you can flavor it with whatever is in season. Luke and I love blood oranges, so I added some zest to the panna cotta and we made a simple coulis, from the oranges, with some orange segments. Yes, that is the real colour of the oranges, and the flavour is almost a mixture of orange and berries.

Although Luke has only been in our lives for relatively short time, he has made an impact. He is a deeply caring and empathetic person, but at the same time whimsical and even silly, which I think is just what we needed lately. We will all miss him, especially Enzo, but we wish him well, as he embarks on another adventure into the unknown. Bon Voyage!!!

LPT and Enzo

 

A quiet Monday Night

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Penumberal lunar eclipse

We recently had a penumbral lunar eclipse…  This means 2 things… First of all werewolves… Now I have nothing against werewolves, if they are well behaved, but the fur…  Second is everyone seems to go bat crap crazy!!!  With our trio all dealing with people on a day to day basis, we needed a quiet evening. So our trio gathered with Luke, for what turned out to be a great meal that we should have invited guests to…  but no werewolves, Enzo hates werewolves.

We have been working on a recipe, for the past while, to tweak it just right.  I think it really works well now, so we served the new and improved Twice baked goat cheese souffles.

Twice Baked Goat Cheese Souffles

This is definitely a favorite. A great starter that can be prepped ahead, frozen, and re-souffled for the occasion.

For our main we might have gone slightly overboard with Beef tenderloin steaks with a port/rosemary sauce, baked potato cups topped with carmelized shallots and roasted mini tomatoes.

Luke asked why the potatoes had little hats, but was pleased to find out they were the shallots. The meat just melted in your mouth, and the sauce was luxurious and silky.

While the tea was steeping, Steph got up to speed on Luke’s upcoming plans, and we heard about Steph’s upcoming trip to see her Mom. Our dessert was one of Steph’s favorites, Chocolate pot de crème with raspberries.

Chocolate Pot de Creme

Treat yourself…. click the link and make this for yourself, it is quick yet creamy and chocolately. I just realized how many rehearsals we have before we perform Elgar’s – The Apostles, and it isn’t as many as I thought, so we better not be late. Plus I want to sell some of those hot air balloons from the Pax fund raiser.