Sunday was my birthday. I am not opposed to birthdays. I like hearing the phrase, “Whatever you want- it’s your birthday!” Since we did the family thing last weekend (see terrible birthday cake) Sunday I spent the day with Eric. He took me to the Brookfield Zoo where I walked around in a tiara and asked every animal if it wanted a jelly bean. None of them said yes, so none of them got one. Although I have to say, those meerkats got pretty close.
Maybe Lovie Smith should consider drafting some Sloth Bears next season.
Afterwards, Eric cooked me a beautiful dinner at his house. I like recipes; Eric does not. I’m good at following directions- he’s great at just throwing things together and having them taste awesome. Sunday’s meal was a combination of the two.
We started with crab wontons and Italian sausage stuffed mushrooms. I wish I could give you the recipes for these, but I’d already gotten into the wine and didn’t pay much attention to what he was using. He put wonton wrappers into a mini muffin tin and filled them with a lump crab meat mixture. For the mushrooms he used baby bellas and sausage he’d gotten on Taylor Street (which is the heart of Little Italy in Chicago). The mushrooms came out before the crab and he wouldn’t let me eat any because he wanted it all to be served together. I pouted for a while, but it was worth the wait. I don’t know how he does it; those appetizers were freakin’ delicious.
For our entree we had pepper crusted filets which he seared on the stovetop and finished off on the grill. I like mine rare.
The one recipe he used was for Berghoff’s Crab Gratin. He has an electric stove, so cooking can be challenging at times. This was one of those times. We had to adjust all the cook times in the recipe, but it turned out awesome. I think he was less thrilled with it, but in my opinion the flavors were amazing. It’s supposed to be baked in individual ramekins, but that seemed like a lot of work, so we went for the casserole dish and adjusted the baking time for that as well. It came out brown and bubbly.
I love brussel sprouts and leeks, Eric loves bacon. We compromised.
I don’t know much about kids, but I can’t understand why they don’t like these. I loved them when I was little. I used to call them “broccoli balls.” Don’t ask me why, they bear absolutely no resemblance to broccoli.
Eric left the dessert to me, which made me happy and perplexed at the same time. What to make, what to make? In the end I decided to take another stab at the vanilla cake/custard/chocolate frosting combination that failed me so miserably last weekend. I took the best components of the bad birthday cake (the custard and the swiss meringue buttercream) and combined them with Magnolia’s vanilla cupcakes. Finally, success. Custard filled cupcakes with tons of chocolate frosting.
The cupcakes were perfectly light and tender and so flavorful. They will definitely be my go to vanilla cupcakes, and I can’t wait to try them as a layer cake. Thank you, Magnolia.
We ate until we couldn’t keep any more down… and then I ate some more. It was a pretty amazing birthday. Good weather, great food, and the company didn’t suck either. I’m a lucky one.
Till next week.
2 Comments
November 2, 2009 at 10:12 pm
You probably called them “broccoli balls” because you were a smarter kid than you knew. Brussels sprouts and broccoli come from the exact same plant–Brassica oleracea of the mustard family–with different parts cultivated into different “vegetables.” The unflowered buds are the sprouts, and once they bloom and grow they become “broccoli.” Other parts of the plant at different flowering stages turn into cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi and cabbage.
There’s your dose of botany for the day
November 2, 2009 at 11:43 pm
wow, that’s really interesting. i do also love broccoli. i was apparently a secret vegetable genius as a child- haha!