Ridiculous Thursday Dinners

It's been quite a few months since I've gotten to cook for my besties Christine and Amber, so I knew I had to go all out for their visit this weekend. They're in town this Thursday and I knew that they needed to be treated to a full, all-out dinner--start to finish.

First course was a salad with arugula, pear, georgia peaches, goat's milk gouda, and red onions, tossed in a strawberry vinaigrette. Good, but missing something. I'm a big fan of the strawberry vinaigrette, which was red wine vinegar, about a cup of strawberries, a dash of sugar, salt, pepper, a dash of lemon juice. It starts like a strawberry smoothie but finishes with the taste of vinaigrette. Nice.

For me and CLurie, main course was a Red Wine beef tenderloin. The steak was prepared just like earliest this week, but instead of the French Cognac sauce I made a red wine reduction with cloves, thyme, allspice, garlic, a dash of lemon juice, and a bay leaf. Amber had a cedar plank smoked salmon that was marinated in butter, lemon juice, olive oil, tarragon, salt, pepper, and parsley. It needs fresh dill and cayenne if you're doing it at home, but it turned out well. As always, cooked the salmon on the cedar planks and added maple syrup just before removing from the oven. Nice.





Finally, the key lime cheesecake. Unfortunately, no mango and no mandoline. So instead, topped with key lime and strawberry slices with a couple of raspberries.



Sorry for being so straight to the point--have to get back to my kiddies. Have a great weekend!