They came out just beautifully, light and fluffy with the soft flavor of Gruyere cheese. Melissa stuffed the ones we had at home Thursday night with a salmon cream cheese sauce, chopped asparagus and fennel leaf. I see great things on the horizon with her pastry-type experiments. It took everything I had not to get up in the middle of the night and gorge on the cheese puffs meant for the happy hour.
Saturday was a big day out: food and wine shopping in the morning, a quick stop in the lab to tend to our cell cultures, then a light lunch at home. Some soba noodles with caramelized onions, bacon (mmmmmm... bacon...) and chopped asparagus.
We had little time to dawdle over lunch since we were due at Jillian's for bowling with about a dozen other people in celebration of a birthday. After a nice dinner at Eastern Standard in Kenmore Square we went down to the Roxy for what turned out to be a great night of music and open bar. My sister-in-law Casey's younger sister Kelly was in town with her company Rock Star Karaoke NYC (that's karaoke with a live band and backup singers) to play a private event at the club. This thing was enormous. A German biotech company rented out all three floors of the city's biggest dance club and threw open the bar(s) for what had to have been well over a thousand people. Although it was a private event, we got in as guests of the band and partied with them after the show. Sweet. See Evan's post from the day for some pics.
I ended up having quite a late day at the lab Sunday while Melissa recovered from Saturday's shenanigans in front of the television. Somewhere between movies inspiration struck, and by the time I got home she had made a roast lamb shank with red wine, tomato and onion sauce, blanched asparagus and lima beans.
The lamb was so tender it fell off the bone at the mere sight of a fork, and the meat just melted in your mouth. You have to cook it long and slow and turn it with love (see Melissa's recipes and notes below). We had a Trader Joe's La Boca cabernet with this dish (it was also in the lamb) that turned out to be really nice for $4 (seriously, $4). Not too shabby.
Finally, Monday's moussaka. We had been given some baby eggplants from a local farm recently, so Melissa made a nice moussaka using the eggplants, some pepper jack cheese we had in the freezer and the leftovers from the lamb shank dinner.
You can't go wrong with those ingredients, really. It was a rich and tasty dish with subtle reminders of the previous night's dinner lamb shank. Gotta love the continuity...
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Melissa's Recipes and Notes
Lamb Shanks
1 large or 2 small lamb shanks
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 head of garlic
1 tbsp of dijon mustard
1/2 cup of red wine
1 red onion
1 tsp of salt
1 tbsp of whole black peppercorns
1/2 cup of water
A couple of sprigs of rosemary
4 dried bayleaves
Place lambshanks into large casserole dish. Pulse tomatoes in a blender to chop tomatoes finely. Slice onion into half rings. Peel all the cloves in a head of garlic. Combine all ingredients and pour over lambshanks. Make sure the liquid is around half way up the side of the casserole dish. Bake covered at 380oF for 3 hours or more while turning shanks every hour or so. Around an hour before you intend to serve uncover the shanks to allow the liquid in the dish to evaporate to leave a thick sauce. Remove bayleaves before serving.
Lima beans - previously described
Asparagus
Break off stems that are woody at the bottom of the spears and place in a casserole dish. Blanch by pouring enough boiling water over the asparagus spears to fill the casserole dish. Cover and let sit for around 10 minutes. Drain and coat with parmesan cheese and freshly ground pepper.
Moussaka
There were quite a bit of leftovers from the lamb dish and I was secretly hoping Matt might have another late night in the lab and I could have a second meal out of them. What was left was really only enough for one, so when Matt came home at a normal hour I came up with a quick and easy moussaka-like recipe to finish them off. Howell and Melinda had given Matt some small eggplants and we had some pepperjack cheese left over from a Dana14 Happy Hour. Add in a few grape tomatoes, some basil leaves and a pepper from the plants outside and we had a meal on our hands.
3 baby eggplants
Salt
Olive oil
~1/2 to 3/4 cup of cooked lima beans
~10 large basil leaves
~6 asparagus spears - cooked
~6 grape tomatoes
1 small mild pepper
~1/2 cup of sauce and lamb pieces from lamb shanks
1/2 cup of pepperjack cheese cubes
Slice baby eggplants longways, salt and drizzle with olive oil. Grill/Broil in oven and flip when each side is golden brown. When eggplants are nicely brown and all the sponginess is gone they're ready. Make layers of ingredients in a small casserole dish. Here's the order I laid down the ingredients Cover the bottom of a small casserole dish with lima beans. Then add ~5 whole basil leaves. Make a layer of eggplant slices using half of the eggplant. Cover with sauce from lamb shanks. Chop asparagus spears and pepper together and sprinkle over sauce. Half grape tomatoes and put on top of asparagus. Cover with rest of basil leaves. Throw in cheese cubes and cover with the rest of the eggplant slices. Put lid on dish and microwave for 5 minutes. Remove cover and sprinkle with a little parmesan cheese and put in 400oF oven uncovered until parmesan cheese is melted and a little crispy (~5 minutes)
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