Friday July 19, 2013

Dinner for 2/3

Black & Red Raspberry Salad with Speck and Halloumi
Citrus Seared Tuna with Crispy Noodles, Herbs and Chilli
Pan Seared Beef Tenderloin with Blueberries, Shallots and Red Wine
Custard Tart with Strawberries and Cream

I love it when a dinner comes together.

The rain came down today.  Down hard.  It took down a huge branch from our maple tree that blocked our driveway and narrowly missed our neighbours cars.  Luckily it didn't snap our power lines but it did shift the poles.  Sadly it has left a huge scar on our tree and I am afraid we will loose it.

Ignoring all that commotion that occurred just as I was making it, dinner turned out great.  I planned for three simple but tasty courses that involved little or no cooking as it has been crazy hot all week with most days feeling hotter than 40C with the humidex.

The dinner was mainly for my husband and myself but I know our oldest would want the tuna and sirloin so I included him.  Due to the minimum cooking involved, I was able to serve a course, eat and then get up to complete the next course.  This made for a wonderful leisurely dinner which is lovely for my husband and I to have with our eldest child.

The salad was based on one in Jamie Oliver's cookbook, Jamie at Home.  It called for strawberries but unfortunately the best of Ontario's strawberries have come and gone so I opted to use wild black and red raspberries.

The tuna dish was so yummy although, I don't think I crisped the noodles quite right and I forgot to add the scallions.  This dish is from Jamie Oliver's cookbook Jamie's Kitchen and as usual it was easy to prepare and tasted fantastic.  I do think the next time I make it I will just leave the noodles out.

The recipe for the sirloin was also based on a recipe from Jamie's Kitchen however the protein called for was venison.  I didn't have access to venison so I used beef tenderloin which I pan seared and then while it was resting I cooked the sauce in the same pan.  I was going to serve this with some steamed broccoli but given how warm it was and how full we were from the first two courses we decided to save the veg for another day.  I definitely would make this again using any steak and serving it up with steamed broccoli and some mash.  The sauce was that good.

I may have mentioned before, that I am not much of a pastry chef.  Today I really took the easy way out and purchased my dessert from Market Fresh .  I love this market!  The dessert was fantastic.

 As a side note my son baked a fantastic cheesecake the day after my dinner.  Perhaps I will have to 'hire' him to make dessert from now on.

Saturday July 13, 2013

Dinner for 6

 Baguette with Garlic Scape Pesto and Tomatoes
Baguette with Goat Cheese and Balsamic Roasted Strawberries
Quick Sausage Meatballs with a Tomato Basil Sauce, Spaghetti and Sweet Raw Peas
Grilled Strawberries with Pimm's and Vanilla Ice Cream

On Friday night my husband was a a work squash tounament (he won so this is his shout out) and my Dad was staying an extra night at my sisters so I held my Friday Night Dinner plan over to Saturday again.  

Both starters were fantastic.  I made up the first one with some homemade garlic scape pesto, tomatoes, onions and parmesan cheese topping baguette slices.  I found the second one with the goat cheese on pinterest (yes I loose time in that world too).  

The Meatball recipe was from Jamie at Home.  It was super easy.  Jamie manages to do that with so many recipes.  It was very tasty too although I think my sauce simmered a little to long and was a tad thick.

Dessert was based off of Jamie's Grilled Strawberries with Pimm's and Vanilla Ice Cream, also out of Jamie at Home. I made this dessert up north two weeks ago but I changed it up a bit this time.  I used some Orange juice and zest when I roasted the berries and I had no cookie crumble this time.  Instead I added a little almond chocolate dipped cookie I had on hand.  It was very tasty again.