Random Deliciousness

So I'm not going to end up recounting the full meals of the last few months; t'would be insane. But a couple of dishes stand out that should be detailed.

When I got home, I asked the mother for suggestions for the first meal I should make upon getting back. I should note that twice I've trusted the fam to rock out some beef tenderloin on their own and, without going into details, you'll just need to trust me that neither preparation ended up being ideal. And boy, am I going to regret writing that-I can hear my mom dialing my number right now...

In any case, I decided we had to start off with a bang. First I melted about 4 tablespoons of butter on the stovetop and added a bit of cream and some sliced garlic. Then I started cooking some bacon and, when all the fat was rendered, searing the tenderloins on both sides in that baconny goodness. They had been dusted with white pepper, cumin, black pepper, kosher salt, and a bit of cayenne.

After some good caramelization on both sides, tossed the tenderloins in the oven, then returned to the bacon grease, which then got some nice sea scallops crusted with black pepper, salt, and cayenne on both sides. Finally, minced the bacon from the beginning of the meal. Topped the tenderloins with sliced scallops, the bacon, and just a dash of garlic butter sauce. Mom called it the best steak she had ever had. I must say, it ranked up there.

I had brought home a sweet potato cheesecake that, in addition to the standard cream cheese, eggs, sugar and milk, got an extra dose of sour cream and pureed sweet potato and a topping of toasted coconut that solidified my love for making cheesecakes. I'm pretty sure that, from here on out, cheesecake is going to basically be my dessert of choice.

I spent weeks brainstorming ideas for the office holiday party. See, the theory behind it made sense--we have lots of people with food talent in this office, and should take advantage of it (them) and make them cook for us. Unfortunately, a middle of the day office party doesn't exactly lend itself to a roasted leg of lamb, so I had to figure out what I could make that would be good cold/room temperature and wouldn't degrade in quality from my preparation the previous night all the way through the afternoon. I finally got an idea when Alyse told me about a dish she ate that had grapes that had been simmered in simple syrup. I'd take Belgian endive spears, fill them with grapes I simmered in simple syrup, a bay leaf, and some allspice, over some melted havarti cheese.

Unfortunately, when I went shopping the night before the party...no belgian endive. Crap. So instead I did them in bell pepper quarters, which made the dish a bit sweeter than I would have liked (thanks to my failure to remember the frissee that would have added a bitter note to replace the lost endive), but it turned out ok.

That wasn't the only recent night that had me at a loss for food ideas. Intern Monica was in town, and needed to be fed. I didn't want to spend a lot of money, but figured she deserved something that had a littttle bit of effort put into it. We wanted Harris Teeter for about ten minutes before I stumbled across some gorgeous looking tuna. Does Intern Monica like raw tuna? No? Tough luck, I'm serving it to you anyway. And then...mmm, dried cranberries....how about...a cranberry risotto?

I had never made seared tuna before, and didn't really know how I was going to do it. So I ground some whole coriander and added a litttttle bit of black pepper and a generous helping of sesame seeds. Seared it on all sides, and them made a quick soy wasabi vinaigrette. Soy sauce, wasabi, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper. And then I made a typical risotto, just adding dried cranberries about halfway through the process. The little fruity bursts of flavor provided terrific balance to the heavy, thick texture of risotto. And today, Intern Monica likes raw tuna.

Later this weekend, because this post is getting too long, I play with potatoes via gnocchi and truffle oil!