We're not entertaining, a joint effort

Hey All,

So I promised some info about dinner last night. It was one of those that we tend to do in the summer(ish) months as an excuse to get together with friends, have a few drinks, and of course, eat good food. Its pretty typical fare for these kinds of get togethers....steaks, potatoes, and a salad.

So first up was starting the steaks. In my younger years, I would have drenched these in some exotic sauce and pretty well ruined the good flavor of them. Now-a-days, its simple marinades to enhance the flavor. One of my favorites, is equal parts balsamic vinegar and Worcestershire sauce with salt and pepper. Its pretty much no fail and I've never had it ruin a steak on me.

On an amusing side note, Lushus gave me a bad time about my pronunciation of Worcestershire. I abbreviate it, "werk". I was informed the proper way to pronounce this, since no-one I cooked with until now could pronounce it, is "wusrt-a-shure". OK, so now I have a fancy way of saying, "Damn, my cooking is easy and it tastes good :P"

I also did some foil packets, one of onions, one of mushrooms, to throw on the grill (top rack), to go over the steaks. We also scored more blue cheese for pennies at NPS.

Up next was the potato prep. Husbear and I have been doing variations on this for years....in foil for camping, in a dish in the oven for at-home, you get the picture. Start with a healthy dose of olive oil in the bottom of the dish.

Then a layer of medium to thin sliced potatoes.

After that, some garlic, onion, mushrooms, salt, and herbs. One of our guests doesn't care much for fungus, so we left about 1/4 of the dish without any mushrooms. The herbs can vary. Last night, we did basil, oregano, and thyme. A touch of rosemary is always nice, but I couldn't find it, so we left it out. About midnight, I remembered its not in one of my bags or fancy jars, its in a can....duh!

Then another layer of potatoes. Some butter....what's left of any of the onions or anything else.

Then one last layer of potatoes, a sprinkle of olive oil, and we gave it a dusting of Sunbird Mongolian Barbeque shake on.....just for a little bit of smokiness.

Cover with foil and into a 350F oven for 60-90 (or longer) minutes.

Lushus and (oh, hell, we need a good nickname for him, let's call him Mr. Corvette) arrived with a spinach salad. She's forwarding directions for her candied pecans. She couldn't find any at the store, so she set out to make her own. These were better than any I've ever had....perfect texture, that when you bit into them were buttery and rich with just the perfect hint of sweetness. I think the only thing that could have improved upon them would have been a bit of cayenne for heat....then again, I like a bit of spice in all my food, so this is really just semantics. The salad was wonderfully simple, spinach, pecans, and dried cranberries, all tossed together with a raspberry vinaigrette.

Grilled the steaks perfectly, to a just on the rare side of medium-rare and we had an awesome dinner. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of the plated meal...it was a mountain of food, and it tasted GREAT!

For dessert, it was the last of the truffles. Lushus assures me, that although they aren't the prettiest things; the flavor is better than the most expensive she's ever had. OK, so I'm letting Ina off the hook for the disaster that was the recipe. I'll suffer with waiting for 2 days for the ganache to set if it garners that kind of praise.

I hope you all are as excited about the summer months as I am. A friend of a friend passed along the word that it was "...time to come out of my cave..." Ah, yes, it is, time for the warmer days and good times!