Thursday, February 03, 2005
Scanning my blogs of past just now, i noticed a comment (1) down below. So excited was i. Now the pressure is on, isn't it, to blog and say something at least mildly interesting.
Here it is....last night's dinner:
We invited two friends (a couple) for dinner so we could discuss our plans for taking an Alaskan cruise this summer. The husband (D) and I had gone to a travel day of info. at a shopping mall to gather all the relevant material. We'd all dutifully studied the books we'd picked up --took about a week-- and made a plan to meet and discuss over dinner. Doing this sort of thing in a restaurant would be difficult. I decided I'd cook up something.
I wanted to connect it to Alaska, but baked Alaska was the only thing i could think of that was Alaskan--which is probably like saying pizza is Italian. Salmon, too, seemed Alaskan. There were photos of salmon entries in the travel books on cruising to Alaskan. And i've read the labels at the market "Alaskan Salmon." I picked up some salmon on my trip to the market and while i was there i thought why not have something i can cook in huckleberry honey. We'd picked up the honey in the northwest on our last adventure with this couple. Seemed like a good idea. Pork chops popped into mind, so i dropped those in the basket. Wild rice sounded Alaskan and a good match for wild huckleberried pork and wild Alaskan salmon. Vegetables? A nice spinach salad with scattered wild field greens, of course, topped with rasberry vinagrette dressing and bacon--berries and pork being the operative ingredients.
At 4:30 I started the assembly process and turned on the heating elements, all of them. The salmon had marinated over-night, and the pork all day. Just to be sure, i doused them with whiskey before they entered the oven. The wild rice boiled, the peas and corn (more vegies) heated, and soon dinner was complete.
When they arrived, we poured drinks, discussed the trip details, and whetted our apetites with spinach artichoke dip. The main course followed, the plan for the trip was made, and dessert came finally from the oven. Almond poppy-seed cake with a whiskey/amereto cream sauce! Yum. What a delicious meal. And to think we even considered going to a restaurant.
All those cooking shows really pay off in the end. I had NO recipes and no idea how long anything had to cook. It's a wonder we ate at all. I believe the secret is wine. Lots of wine.
Here it is....last night's dinner:
We invited two friends (a couple) for dinner so we could discuss our plans for taking an Alaskan cruise this summer. The husband (D) and I had gone to a travel day of info. at a shopping mall to gather all the relevant material. We'd all dutifully studied the books we'd picked up --took about a week-- and made a plan to meet and discuss over dinner. Doing this sort of thing in a restaurant would be difficult. I decided I'd cook up something.
I wanted to connect it to Alaska, but baked Alaska was the only thing i could think of that was Alaskan--which is probably like saying pizza is Italian. Salmon, too, seemed Alaskan. There were photos of salmon entries in the travel books on cruising to Alaskan. And i've read the labels at the market "Alaskan Salmon." I picked up some salmon on my trip to the market and while i was there i thought why not have something i can cook in huckleberry honey. We'd picked up the honey in the northwest on our last adventure with this couple. Seemed like a good idea. Pork chops popped into mind, so i dropped those in the basket. Wild rice sounded Alaskan and a good match for wild huckleberried pork and wild Alaskan salmon. Vegetables? A nice spinach salad with scattered wild field greens, of course, topped with rasberry vinagrette dressing and bacon--berries and pork being the operative ingredients.
At 4:30 I started the assembly process and turned on the heating elements, all of them. The salmon had marinated over-night, and the pork all day. Just to be sure, i doused them with whiskey before they entered the oven. The wild rice boiled, the peas and corn (more vegies) heated, and soon dinner was complete.
When they arrived, we poured drinks, discussed the trip details, and whetted our apetites with spinach artichoke dip. The main course followed, the plan for the trip was made, and dessert came finally from the oven. Almond poppy-seed cake with a whiskey/amereto cream sauce! Yum. What a delicious meal. And to think we even considered going to a restaurant.
All those cooking shows really pay off in the end. I had NO recipes and no idea how long anything had to cook. It's a wonder we ate at all. I believe the secret is wine. Lots of wine.
