Date night dinner....Part 1

This past week the boy was on vacation, visiting with his grandparents, aunt and uncle and cousins. We took the opportunity to have a dinner date.

We went to Mr. P.'s Bistro in Southport. Local friends, if you have never been...what are you waiting for? It is still my favorite place to eat a fancy dinner out with my honey.

It was a Monday night,

so it was not that busy. We decided to go on a whim. That turned out to be a really good decision, because I am not sure we could have had a night out that week otherwise between long work hours for Jeff, rehearsals for Into the Woods and just a busy schedule in general.

I was really in the mood for a steak, so I chose the Filet Mignon. It is served with a caramelized onion and bourbon butter. (You're salivating now, aren't you? Go ahead, admit it). It came served with roasted potatoes and a vegetable. I picked the fried green tomatoes. Don't judge. It counts as a vegetable. Sort of. Jeff wanted seafood so he ordered the fresh red snapper stuffed with crab meat. He also got the potatoes and the fried green tomatoes.

Our dinners were cooked perfectly. I could have cut the steak, which I ordered medium-rare, with a fork

because it was so tender. The potatoes had just a hint of salt and pepper and the fried green tomatoes were crispy and not the least bit greasy. To go along with the date night theme, we ordered fancy cocktails. Mine was a flavored cosmo-type drink and Jeff had the Southport Streetcar -- Maker's Mark, Cointreau and lemon juice in a martini glass rimmed with sugar. It was so good in fact, that he had two. Which made him a little giggly and I had to drive home. After we sat on a bench at the waterfront for a while. It was not hot, the breeze felt wonderful and the company was even better. All in all, a great success.

Yes, this was an expensive dinner. It's not something we can do every day, or every month for that matter. But we have to treat ourselves sometimes. We like good food, so a nice dinner out is a good date for us. We all get busy, and it is important to set time aside to remind ourselves and each other that we matter - that we are important to each other and together.

We did manage to squeeze in one more date night that week when we cooked together at home. Look for more on that one coming soon in Date night dinner....Part 2.

The Cutest Cookbook Ever

We recently bought a new shelf for the room off our kitchen (I never know what to call that room - it has a closet, so it's not really a pantry). We just didn't have enough storage room, and the bigger shelf holds more than the baker's rack we had there. We also got some S hooks to hang our stainless steel pots from the side. All in all, it worked out well and we think we're pretty cool.

I rearranged a lot of stuff, including the cookbooks and loose recipes I always mean to organize completely but never quite finish doing.

While sorting through some of these, I came across something called "First Grade Cafe," a cookbook of sorts John did in school. Oh my gosh, how cute. It was made up of coloring book pages with spaces for the young chefs to fill out the recipe name, list the ingredients used and draw a picture of what the finished product looked like. Mostly what they "cooked" were things like trail mix and cookies. There was also a page at the end for a recipe the students were asked to supply (with help from parents, of course). John's was Peanut Butter Scotties. They're like Rice Krispie Treats except with peanut butter and butterscotch chips instead of marshmallows.

What a precious find.

John has come a long way since then. He can make a roux, and he knows how to chop or dice veggies at different sizes depending on how we're going to cook them. He has made homemade macaroni and cheese, Ohana wings,  and corn pudding on his own (with just some supervision) and is an excellent sous chef in training. To his future wife, Jeffrey and I say "you're welcome."

We have probably outgrown this cookbook, except for the Peanut Butter Scotties - they sound really good. But it will still have a place of honor on the shelf with the others.

Peanut Butter Scotties
6 cups Rice Krispies
1 12-ounce package butterscotch chips
1 cup peanut butter

Melt butterscotch chips and peanut butter together in a double boiler. Mic well. Stir in Rice Krispies and mix gently until the cereal is coated. Press into a buttered 9x13 pan and refrigerate.

Sometimes it's ok to admit you had a crappy day, or why sometimes drive-thrus are the only hope of the family eating dinner

It was such a Monday. Epic, really. You know how sometimes Jupiter aligns with Mars and peace guides the planets? Well the opposite happened this Monday. Jupiter apparently cut Mars off and there was only bickering among the planets.

That might be a little dramatic, but I'm Italian, so...

I had great plans for dinner. I really did. I'd had a stressful day and planned on cooking to make it better. But first, I had to leave from work a little early, pick up John and his baritone, pick up another teenager and her flag for marching band guard, and deliver them to the high school. We also took along two mosquitoes for part of the ride. We lost them somewhere along the way. I think I did manage to smash one, but the other one must have escaped somehow. It must have known what was coming. I delivered my charges and their equipment without issues. Then I headed back down toward Southport so I could go to WalMart. I don't usually like to grocery shop at WalMart, but I needed a plain white t-shirt for the boy, so I figured I might as well go to just one store. I'm not being snobby about not wanting to buy groceries there. I am just short and the signs saying what is in each aisle are really high in the air at WalMart (and no, I am not linking to WalMart from this blog - if you can't find that on your own, you probably shouldn't even be on the internet).

Unfortunately, there was a jack-knifed trailer across the road miles away from WalMart. Miles away from anything actually. The only way to "get around" it would have been about a 45-minute drive. Of course, I waited in traffic for more than an hour. Still not sure I shouldn't have bailed. But no, I stayed the course. Finally we could go. Well, sort of. We had to get around the disabled pickup that was also dead in our lane. I really felt for that guy. One time our van died on the way back to Penn State the first day the PA Turnpike was open to traffic after a major snowstorm. Been there done that. No one wants to be that guy. Traffic was still slow, but I finally did make it to the store.

I did pretty well at the store, even considering the tourists are here and the shelves needed attention. Then I was off to get gas across the street. The short version of my time there is I very politely explained to the little girl in the Mustang that she was not actually going to cut me off and take my turn at the pump. I then ignored the guy who thought I should pull out into traffic and get crushed instead of waiting for a clear spot (maybe he was friends of Mustang girl?).

At this point, it was 7:10. I was going to have no interest in cooking dinner, or in waiting for food to be prepared. Enter KFC 8-piece box. We don't really get fast food very often, but tonight it was just the thing. Naturally, when I pulled up to the order box, it beeped a really loud high-pitched noise at me. When it stopped, I was able to give my order. When I got to the window, the employee asked me how I was doing. I replied with the expected "fine." Then I told her that actually, I had a pretty crappy day. She said she had too. I told her I was sorry to hear that and pointed out that at least I hadn't taken out my bad day on her, and she agreed that I had not. We ended with her passing me the food and each of us wishing the other a "great night" and resolving to make it so.

I always try to find the positive, even if some days it's harder to do that. Tonight it was dinner for the family that Jeffrey or I didn't have to cook, I made it home safely, and I made someone smile. Not too bad, I guess.