Shpadoinkle!

Uhh... Oh yeeeaahhh! So here we are, finally, popping our 'blog-cherry', and damn does it feel good. I couldn't have picked something better to write about either... Little bit of background: Pizza and I have been together for just under two years now and it was apparent early on that we both enjoyed cooking (We would make dinner together at night and during the daytime's I would be baking for roommates as well as coworkers... tastesting bitches LoL). Since we've been together so long, once in a while we need to have some time alone together (So I can stare into Pizza's big beautiful eyes and wax poetic to her all night about how great I am... I mean she is!); We can call these nights our date nights. We try to do these once a week to every two weeks. It helps keep things splendiforous between us and I suggest y'all try it! Anyways, we had been doing this for a while, mostly cooking for each other when it was either of our turns, sometimes trying out restaurants in our area that we have never been to. Btw we are planning to try out Chuck Hughes' restaurant in the old port (the guy from Chuck's day off) for our 2 year aniversary in about a week!! So excité. Maybe we will get to meet him AH! Long story short, these date nights also depended on if our schedules changed, completely different days off, then about two months ago our schedules get even worse. Conflicting days off and Pizza started working even earlier and I started working even later, meaning we hardly had time for... eh... talking. We recently decided we have to make time to have these special date nights. Not only does it give us time alone together, but its also fun and also a great way for us to practice and hone our mad skillz. This time (Thursday) it was my turn to cook and I had decided that I was going to go all out; which is out of character for me since Pizza is the better cook and I am more of a baker. Since I love baking I had already decided I wanted to do a desert, but what to do for the rest? I didn't want to do anything like I had ever done before so I decided on making a soup from scratch, some kind of fish fillet (was hoping for salmon, yum) and risotto! All that and a starter. Oh boy! I was kinda shitting myself. Did I bite off more then I could chew? I was afraid I was gonna crash an burn. Even though this was a pretty tall order, I decided to go ahead with it anyways and all in all it turned out pretty well, like an experiment, a couple things I would change the next time, others were perfect.

So I woke up Thursday morning, to find the kitties sleeping together and ransacked my kitchen to check what I had and to compile a shopping list. Then it was off to the local grocery store to stock up for one crazy night. Pizza met me at the store after work and helped me carry it all home and so started the insanity.

Pizza is a really big fan of cheese and has been slowly introducing, and passing on this love to me. So for our appetizer, (since cooking was likely going to take a really long time) I chose to make a plate of brie and baguette for us to wet our palette. With this we had a glass of wine since I had purchased extra for the risotto.















Brie by the way is absolutely wonderfully creamy and I love it. I could eat this stuff everyday but then we all know that I wouldn't be able to afford to eat anything else if that were the case lol.

Pizza had been bugging me all week to eat up the broccoli that we had so for the starter I decided we would do just that. I made cream of broccoli soup.






























Cream of Broccoli Soup

2 cups of chopped broccoli, steamed
1 clove of garlic, minced
2/3 cup vegetable broth (next time I'll use 1 cup)
1 tbs Earth Balance soy butter
2 tbs AP flour
1 1/2 cups Skim milk (next time 2 cups)
1/8 of a red onion, chopped
1 tsp thyme (next time 1/2 tsp)
1/2 tsp cayenne (next time 1/4 tsp)
salt + pepper to taste
cheddar, grated, for garnish


1. Chop up the Broccoli and steam in Steamer
2. In a small frying pan, saute onion + garlic
3. Once Broccoli is soft ( and onions are transparent) put them both into a food processor with 1/3 of the vegetable broth and puree
4.In a saucepan, on medium heat, melt the earth balance and the flour. Stir until mixture thickens + starts to brown.
5. Slowly add remaining veg. broth and milk, stirring often. Allow to thicken for about 5 mins.
6. Add puree and allow to thicken for about 5 mins. Season with thyme + cayenne + salt + pepper to taste.
7.Portion into bowls and garnish with grated cheddar

Now this soup was okay, but as this whole night was gonna somewhat turn my kitchen into a science lab as I had never tried this before. Next time I would add more liquid to the soup as it was a bit too thick and I would scale back the amount of seasoning I used as it was a bit over powering. This kind of soup doesn't really require a lot of seasoning because broccoli has a great mild flavor and you want to be able to still taste it.
So moving on to the main course. When we got to the grocery store I was really hoping to get two nice, juicy pieces of fresh salmon, but my big panda heart was crushed as they didn't have salmon. All they had was "truite saumoner". The guy swore it was so salmon-y that you could barely tell the difference, so we took the two pieces. I decided on a nice balsamic glaze for the fish.

Balsamic-Glazed Fish

2 fillets "salmon"

2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tsp white whine
2 tsp honey
2 tbs balsamic vinegar
2 tsp Dijon mustard
Salt + pepper to taste
Feta crumbled.

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray.
2. Coat a small pan with non-stick cooking spray and, over medium heat, cook the garlic until soft.
3. Mix in white wine, honey, balsamic, mustard and salt+ pepper and simmer, uncovered, until slightly thickened.
4. Put the fish fillets on the foil lined baking sheet, brush with the balsamic glaze and sprinkle with the crumbled feta
5. Bake for 10-14 mins. Brush the fillets with any remaining glaze and serve.

















Interlude: While I was labouring away in the kitchen, Pizza was taking it easy with Smatchimo who curled up beside her to take a nap. Isn't she sweet. She's my bab-ay!














Carrying on... The fish was good, it had nice tangy sweetness to it that went really well with the more subtle creamy taste of the risotto, but it definetly was not salmon. The taste difference was very noticeable and I will not be buying that again. Next time I would probly crumble more feta on it then I did this time. I didn't find there was enough... but then I love feta!

Now the notorious risotto. This single aspect of the meal that I had decided to cook scared me the most. I was afraid, that since I had never made a risotto before that it would turn out to be quite the disgusting mess. Luckily (*phew*) that was not the case. It actually turned out quite well, which surprised me so much that I told Pizza to tell everyone she knew how good it was.
















Creamy Mushroom Risotto

2 tbs Olive oil
1/4 Red onions, chopped
4 ounces Shiitake mushrooms, caps sliced
3 ounces cremini mushrooms, caps sliced
3 ounces white mushrooms, caps sliced
2 tbs earth balance soy butter
1 cup arborio rice
1 cup dry white wine
3 cups vegetable stock
salt, pepper, thyme + garlic powder to taste
2 tbs finely chopped chives



1. Heat olive oil in large saucepan over med-high heat. Stir in onions and cook for about 30 secs.
2. Add mushrooms and cook until brown.
3. Stir in 1 tbs of butter and the arborio rice until rice is well coated in oil. Reduce heat to medium and cook until onions and mushrooms have turned golden brown.
4. Pour in white wine and simmer until evaporated, stirring constantly. Season with salt, pepper, thyme and garlic powder.
5. Reduce heat to med-low and pour in 1 cup of vegetale stock. Cook until evaporated, stirring constantly.
6. Repeat with the rest of the stock, one cup at a time, stirring constantly until evaporated and rice is tender and creamy.
7. Stir in remaining tablespoon of butter, parmesan and chives and serve.

This risotto was absolutely perfect deliciousness. I can't believ how easy this was too! Didn't even take as long as I thought it would. I could eat mushrooms seven days a week so this dish is a great excuse to overload on the mushrooms. The shitakes especially give it some great texture.

Lastly was desert!! Dessert is my favorite part! Makes me giddy :) For dessert I made one of pizza's favorites... mini Pecan Pies!! That's right folks, pecan pies.




























































Ramekin Pecan Pies

Crust:
1/3 cup AP flour
1/8 tsp salt
2 tbs cold Earth balance soy butter
3 tsp cold water

Filling:
1/4 cup (heaping) chopped pecans (devided)
2 tbs brown sugar
1 tbs AP four
1 egg beaten
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a bowl, combine flour + salt, cut in the butter until crumbly. Add water, one teaspoon at a time, until a ball forms.
2. Divide the dough in two and roll out. Press into the bottom and up the sides of two ramekins
3. Fill the pie shells with the pecans
4. Combine the filling ingredients, mix well.
5. Pour into pie shells, on top of pecans.
6. Bake at 375 degrees F for 35-40 mins.


These were so tasty. The only change I would make is that I left them in for the full 40 mins and they eneded up a little well done. Next time I'll only leave them in for 35 mins. Even so though, when I was done mine, totally wanted more!


All in all, I would say the whole night was a success. I would have to say, even though I'm Ca-razy about desserts, my favorite part was the risotto. Well I know this was insanely long but there is our first post Hope you foodies liked it! Be seeing you soon!


Panda