Date Night In #1: A Sort Of Fairy Tale

It’s finally Friday night! I have been waiting for Friday night all week. It’s time for several days’ worth of prep, and a few weeks’ worth of excitement, to come to fruition. It’s time for DATE NIGHT IN.

The date nights in Ashley’s book are divided into the four seasons, which is pretty brilliant. Ingredients are easier to get certain times of year, and, well, “Over the Fire” would be a lot harder to achieve in February than in July. Teetering between summer and fall, we looked at both options before quickly deciding that summer deserves to be savored. So, our first Date Night In was “A Sort of Fairy Tale.” The menu included:

• ·         Hemingway Punch
• ·         Thyme and Parmesan Roasted Sweet Potatoes
• ·         Caribbean-Style BBQ Chicken Legs
• ·         Mango Miso Slaw
• ·         Caramelized Pineapple Sundaes with Candied Coconut (can I get an Amen??)

I texted with my mom earlier in the day and let her know all that I’d done already:

• ·         Bought a Yaris’ load of ingredients I’d never used before, like rum, cherry liqueur, jalapeno peppers, chicken legs (yes, I’ve never cooked chicken legs before—don’t judge), miso paste (???), vanilla beans ($3 for one long, muddy, shrively bean…check Amazon next time Julie), coriander, and rice wine vinegar. Clearly, Date Night In is brought to you by Wegmans.
• ·         Make brown sugar syrup
• ·         Make BBQ sauce (see last entry for coriander grinding tales)
• ·         Season chicken legs
• ·         Make slaw dressing
• ·         Make candied coconut
• ·         Make spiced caramel (all of this date night was worth it to make that spiced caramel)
• ·         Make slaw (save dressing to toss right before serving)
• ·         Prep sweet potatoes

Once we got the boys to bed I descended downstairs to start the final preparations. Roy was in charge of the cocktail (first cocktail we’ve ever made) while I popped the sweet potatoes into the oven and fired up the stove top to sear chicken legs. I was a little nervous knowing the potatoes and chicken roasted at different times and temperatures, but I figured we could guesstimate.

Owen started screaming. It wasn’t an “I’m sick” or “I’m hungry” cry. It was just plain old “I’m bored and I can tell you’re doing fun things without me” cry. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that noise from James, but we have since been thoroughly educated. I told Owen in my head that he’d have to figure it out. It’s Date Night In, for pete’s sake. Fifteen minutes later…

• ·         The chicken was seared. Nicely, even though I wasn’t sure about how to flip the legs quickly in a piping hot skillet. (Christmas gifts: splatter screen, metal tongs)
• ·         Roy was wrestling with a grapefruit and crushing ice with a hammer.
• ·         The potatoes were ready to flip. Orrrrrr not.



Well, drats.

• ·         Owen was still screaming. Even louder.

I took the potatoes out, sighed, and told myself that the night would improve. Do not give up! I stuck the chicken in (at the right temperature now that we didn’t have to worry about potatoes) and gave in to Owen. After a sweet rock and snuggle he got drowsy enough that he only howled for a minute after I re-deposited him and headed downstairs. Roy met me with a beautifully rimmed cocktail that tasted, well, incredible. It was sweet and sour and a little punchy without tasting like straight up hard liquor. Yummmmmmmy.

Grapefruit sugar and lime around the rim.

My parents' old kitchen table makes for a surprisingly artsy backdrop here.

We sipped our drinks and set the table together, happy to be connecting after an insanely challenging week. I kept a close eye on the chicken and tossed the slaw. We waited until we could wait no longer for the chicken legs to settle post-broil, then attacked our plates with great expectations.

What was left of the potatoes was good, and improved upon with extra barbecue sauce.

 

We had leftover sauce, which will most certainly be used. Hi Owen's high chair.

The slaw, which I was the most nervous about, was super unique and really good. I was worried it would taste too strongly of one ingredient—onion perhaps, or cilantro, or jalapeno. But everything melded beautifully, even without an overnight bath in the sauce. It was bright and salty and crunchy and sweet all at once. And look how colorful and pretty!

Miso, by the way, is basically soybean paste.

We were excited about chicken. We don’t eat a lot of meat, and it’s even rarer that we actually serve meat by itself. Usually we throw a little into something else for protein/bulk. So this was a treat. And It. Was. So. Good. It was perfectly cooked (yay!), crispy on the outside, and the sauce was incredible. I guess the coriander was worth the grinding after all. ;)

You want some, don't you?

We kept ourselves to 2 apiece. We ate the rest the next day as soon as allowed.

We ate, enjoyed, sipped, savored, and knew that we still had dessert. With the SPICED CARAMEL. I heated up a little of the caramel with butter, sautéed fresh pineapple to coat and soften, then served over the best vanilla ice cream I could find. Plus extra sauce and toasted sweet coconut. Warm. Cold. Melty. Smooth. A tiny crunch. Flavor explosion. I really can’t express to you how good it was. I’m making more caramel sauce tomorrow for…I don’t know—my morning coffee. Anything.

 

The picture, unfortunately, is a little blurry and doesn't do it much justice. 

Date Night In #1 was, with the exception of the stupid potatoes, a complete success. We had a mountain of dishes to wash, but we threw them in the sink and worried about them later. I would make any of those dishes over again in a heartbeat, and the technique for the chicken legs will be duplicated with lots of different sauces in the future. We are already excited for October!

And more spiced caramel. Tomorrow.

I leave you with a quote from the introduction to this date from Ashley's book. Roy said, after reading the cookbook, that she is me. (Or I am her?) And this quote was perfect for us in this moment, when dripping ceilings, and on-the-job injuries, and sick little boys, and worries about money had the temporary upper hand.

“I want to tell them that, just before I said ‘I do’ to their dad, I thought, 'Ashley, is he the one?’ but then responded to myself, ‘How the hell do I know? What I do know is that I'd be completely stupid if I didn't choose to spend the rest of my life with him.’ I want to tell my kids that now he's my one but we had to work damn hard to get here. We've both battled our dragons, climbed the towering walls, and fought like hell for each other. But this story, our sweet, utterly imperfect fairy tale, is the sort of story worth telling and the one worth fighting for.

Today's 1%: I polished off the rest of the spiced caramel.