Menu:
Rhubarb Sour
Spring Green Salad
with Creamy Shallot Vinaigrette
Herb-Butter Roasted
Chicken with Tarragon Aioli
Maple Coriander
Roasted Carrots
Strawberry
Shortcake Trifle
In short summary, this date night in was A) the most time
consuming yet and B) the tastiest yet. Each of the five menu items required
sub-recipes in order to complete. There were a lot of dirty dishes…
…but the kitchen was cleaner at the end of this date
night in than any others too! Normally we leave the kitchen a complete disaster
and deal with it in the morning. But the chicken took a full hour to cook and
we had ample time to wash/load dishes while it roasted. Winning!
OK. Nitty gritties. First off, I found rhubarb! Admittedly, it was Dole and I found it in the frozen aisle, but I’ll take frozen
when I’m desperate. I had to boil the rhubarb to make a syrup for the drink.
Frozen rhubarb didn’t translate well into syrup. It turned into rhubarb preserves.
Which, admittedly, was delicious. But not super strainable. So we had rhubarb
sour-slushies. (The leftover rhubarb was excellent spread on scones the
next few mornings.)
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| Rhubarb "syrup" |
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| Pulpy! |
The salad was the best yet. I whipped together the basic
vinaigrette, which smelled, in all honesty, like a Subway restaurant, but
tasted far fancier. We used butter lettuce. BUTTER LETTUCE. It’s as pretty as
the name implies. Ribbony and bright and crisp but not too bitter. I loooooved
it. If you’ve never used butter lettuce (also called Boston lettuce) go out and
get some now. Just be sure to give it a really good rinse—ours was kind of
gritty at the bottom.
We added avocado, radishes, a healthy dusting of fresh
herbs, and goat cheese to the lettuce (which had been tossed in the dressing).
Like I said, this was my favorite salad so far. Maybe I really am desperate for
spring, but the herbs made it complex and wonderful.
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| Is there such a thing as too much goat cheese? |
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| Lots of little herbs: basil, cilantro, parsley, tarragon, and dill. |
The chicken was…slimy.
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| Every time I opened my fridge it was looking at me! |
I made the herb-butter rub and
then…rubbed it. Over, under, in, around…you name it, it got rubbed.
<shivers> Thankfully the nasty removal of inner parts was pretty simple. The
chicken cooked beautifully and was really good. We still have leftovers! Roy
asked me if I would start buying whole chickens since they are pretty
inexpensive. I’m not ready to give up prepackaged breasts or legs, but I would
definitely consider roasting a whole chicken now and then.
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| Nice crisp brown skin and finish. |
The tarragon aioli was another new cooking technique for
me. It was basically like making mayonnaise or a hollandaise sauce—egg yolk,
lemon juice, garlic, salt, tarragon, and oil. Roy helped dribble in oil oh so
slowly as I whisked. (Half of the catastrophes on MasterChef are from things not emulsifying. I was pretty sure this
was going to happen to me, as a novice. But, we made a good team and the aioli
was a lovely texture. Woo!) It was kind of addicting too. Initially I was kind
of “it’s pretty good” about it. But it got better after each subsequent dip.
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| First time using tarragon. I am learning how amazing herbs are! |
We actually used the aioli more with the carrots than the
chicken. The carrots were all Roy’s preparation. I thought they were wonderful.
If we had a bit more patience I might have broiled them, as is suggested, just
to give a little more caramelization, but they were sweet and herby and dipped
like fries into the sauce. Oh man, I’m getting hungry typing this blog…
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| Kind of like sweet potato fries. |
I basically described the shortcake in my previous
anticipatory entry, so I won’t bore you with more delicious details. It was
tasty though. I personally would have liked a bit more juice throughout the
whole thing—it was a teensy bit dry, but the components individually were…yeah…need
to find a snack now.
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| I had to hide the strawberries in the back of the fridge. If James or Owen had spotted them it would have been all over. |
Winter held some wonderful joys for our little family,
but there were also challenges, particularly with the cold season refusing to
go away quietly (SNOW last Sunday…). I think we kicked winter in the pants with
this Date Night In. And it felt really good to defy its polar grip. Long live
spring!
Today’s 1%: It’s
always a 1% to spend the day with family. When it’s sunny and mild outside and
there are hamburgers from the grill—well, that’s enough icing on the cake for even my father-in-law.
