Dinners with D Makes a Comeback!

After a four-month hiatus from my traveling, Dinners with D is back in business!  I made it to Diana’s house around 7pm on Sunday night, salivating over the thought of the Chicken Tortilla Soup were going to make.  When I got there she informed me that she had already made the soup since it was a slow cooker recipe.  She did, however, have a delicious dessert we were going to make, a Pear Kiwi Pecan Crisp.  I have really only tried apple crisp and rhubarb crisp so I was excited to try such an exciting version.

I got to work slicing seven pears while Diana cut up the four kiwis.  After the fruit was all cut up we mixed it with the remaining ingredients, raisins, flour, pecans and lemon juice.

All mixed up and ready for the topping

Diana and I are always trying to find new ways to make our recipe’s both exciting and healthy.  We debated whether switching the butter in the crumbly topping with oil would make it taste bad.  We decided to go for it.  I love a good crumbly topping and this one full of cinnamon and honey sounded equally delicious.  After the topping was evenly spread on the mouth-watering fruit, we baked it in the oven for 45 minutes.

While the dessert baked, we sliced the avocado and dished up the soup.  I usually try to steer away from any kind of soup, as they hold nearly my recommended daily intake of sodium.  I have it set in my mind that every time I eat something like that, a day is shaved off my poor life.  It was a chilly spring day and Diana is always sensitive to the needs of my diet so I convinced myself it would be worth it.  I sprinkled some fresh cilantro on top and dug in.  It was hot, delicious and bursting with fresh flavors.

I wish I had leftovers...

We got about halfway through our soup when Diana screamed out.  “Dammit!  This is so like me!  I forgot the tortilla strips!”  I laughed.  And laughed.  For those of you that have followed Dinners with D, you know that with every recipe we make, there is always something we forget.  It humors us every time.  We both love to cook and are fairly good at it, but somewhere between the bottle of wine and the breaks in cooking, there is always a certain ingredient that gets left out.  Surprisingly, it never breaks the meal and offers us an “Oh, wow” moment of laughter.

After our stomachs were ready for dessert we pulled the crisp out of the oven and took in the delicious scent wafting through the kitchen.  Diana started to dish up the scrumptious looking dish when she cried out again.  “Shit!  We forgot the sugar!”  This mistake actually had my attention, worrying that without the sugar it would taste too bland.  Regardless, I laughed once again.  We sprinkled a little sugar on top of the crisp and took a bite.  It was amazing, the pears and kiwi were like a marriage that was meant to be and the pecans and raisins were their perfect children.  The sugar was not even necessary, the sweetness of the fruit was more than enough to offer a wholesome, organic, satisfying flavor.  Oh and the oil was just fine in the topping, you never would have known the difference.

Who needs sugar?!

The first round back with Dinners with D was deliciously successful and I am so happy that it is back in business.  Good wine, great food and awesome company, what more could you ask for?

Dinners With D: Roasted Red Pepper Tapenade & Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Following my last day of work, Diana suggested we dedicate our dinner to new beginnings.  I thought it was a great idea.  New beginnings in life can be complex and scary but they are also exiting and usually welcomed.  And what better way to welcome new beginnings than with a delicious meal?

This week we had the pleasure of company for dinner. Amanda arrived and we sank into the couch with a glass of wine, recapping on our day.  I had not had a meal since my “last supper” at 10am and was itching to get dinner started.

We moved into the kitchen and examined our latest recipe.  Stuffed chicken breasts are one of my favorite things to cook.  You can basically stuff anything inside a piece of chicken: bacon, vegetables, spinach, fruit, spreads and cheese of course.  Always lots of cheese.  We started by sautéing garlic, onion and spinach.  After that mixture was complete we set it aside and prepared the tapenade.

I love a good tapenade.  Whitey’s in downtown Stillwater has a delicious Hummus & Tapenade platter that I violently crave every time I am drunk down there.  I usually end up “settling” for a hot dog from the stand in the alley, still dwelling on the smooth hummus and salty tapenade in the back of my mind.

After all the ingredients were ready I sliced the chicken and began to stuff them full of tasty goodness.  The recipe called for four chicken breasts and we used three so we got quite the bonus on our filling, which is never a bad thing.

Our scrumptious meal!

We moved into the living room with our wine and relaxed while we waited for our masterpiece to be complete.  When it was finished we sat down to a mouth-watering meal I am likely to make again.  The goat cheese (one of my favorites) was warm and created a match made in heaven with the red pepper tapenade.  After dinner we retired to the couch again.  I begged Amanda to give me a face massage (the best!) which put me right to sleep like a baby.  We had a fun night, the meal was delectable and Amanda finally got her honorable mention on the blog.

Dinners with D: Spinach & Mushroom Lasagna

My week was busy and distressing from my job hunting and I was looking forward to winding down with a relaxing night of cooking and wine.  Diana and I failed to pick out a recipe earlier in the week so she settled on Spinach & Mushroom Lasagna.  I silently moaned in disappointment over the phone.  I’ll eat nearly every vegetable with the exception of mushrooms.  We decided to substitute the mushrooms for thick, whole tomato slices on one half of the lasagna.

Both my mom and sister, Denise love to make lasagna but since I don’t eat red meat, it has been nearly 15 years since I have enjoyed one.  We fired up the kitchen and began chopping onion and garlic, boiling noodles and preparing a salad.  After all the ingredients had come together we began assembling the lasagna.  As we were layering the cheese, spinach mixture and noodles, we noticed I had used all the cheese, skipping the last layer.  Between our wine drinking, chatting and breaks in our cooking we always manage to make a minor mistake in some way.  Luckily these mistakes never break the recipe and offer us a little chuckle.  We called in reinforcements and grabbed another jar of sauce and spare mozzarella from the fridge to create the last layer.

   We tackled the messy kitchen as the 10 pound lasagna cooked for 30 minutes.  When it came out of the oven we let it set for 15 minutes before we sat down to enjoy what looked like the best lasagna I was ever going to eat.  And it was.  I had no complaints and there was nothing I would have changed.  It was amazingly cheesy and the thick tomato slices were an awesome substitution for mushrooms.  After our second helping of our mouth-watering creation I looked at the clock and realized it was 10:30.  I really need to stop eating massive, heavy meals right before I go to bed.  Nonetheless, it was delicious and that hearty meal put me right to sleep!

Dinners With D: Spicy Mac & Cheese

This week our Whole Foods cooking adventure lead us to a homestyle favorite with a kick.  We arrived at Diana’s house and settled in, anxiously awaiting the blizzard due to arrive later that evening.  We cracked a beer, poured wine and chatted about our days before we jumped into the preparation of our much-anticipated meal.

I had never made mac & cheese from scratch, so not only was I excited to eat it but I was interested to see how it all came together as well.  We started with a deliciously aromatic blend of onion, garlic, cumin, coriander and butter.  As we let it all saute in the pan,  we worked as a team to bring the rest of the ingredients together.

After realizing that we didn’t have the amount of bread crumbs that the recipe called for, we took out our chef hats and created a solution to our own problem.  We simply baked two hot dog buns (the blandest bread we had) in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes, crumbled and wa-la!  We have bread crumbs!

We mixed all our ingredients together in a casserole dish and baked it for 35 minutes.  With the extra half hour on our hands, we decided to eat dessert first and indulge in a sampler of ice cream and frozen yogurt.

The dish was hot and fresh when it came out of the oven and we could barely stand the suggested five-minute cooling period before we were ready to dig in.

Although this was not the traditional homemade mac & cheese that I had imagined it would be, I still thought it was headed in the absolute right direction.

Should I make this dish again, which I do hope to do, I would not boil the noodles as long, as they broke down slightly throughout the baking process.  I would also have added more cheese, seeing as we all agreed it was lacking that ooey, gooey cheesy goodness that we all love about mac & cheese.  And as long as I’m at it, I would probably add a generous portion of bacon.  Because as you know, everything is always better with bacon.  Until next time, Whole Foods!

Snowed In

Six weeks ago, Diana brought out her Whole Foods Cookbook and picked out a recipe for Black Bean Soup.  Each week after we have created a different delicious and healthy meal, including Pepper Quesadillas, Whole Wheat Chicken Pot Pie, Thai Tofu Wraps and Jalapeno Cilantro Pesto Pizza.  I look forward to our cooking each week, knowing that we will feast like queens on a spectacular meal, all while enjoying good company, good music and good wine.

I left work in Burnsville at 3:45 and arrived at her home in West St. Paul at 4:30.  The normal 15 minute drive took three times as long due to the storm that had been rolling in since 1pm.  Diana arrived shortly after me, frustrated with her 1 1/2 hour commute from Lakeville.  We settled in with comfy clothes and giant slippers, looking forward to being “snowed in”.

The night grew old and the snow fell in heaps over her quaint neighborhood, covering any evidence of fall that still remained.  We uncorked a bottle of Cabernet and began studying this week’s recipe: Stewed Lentils with Cucumber, Yogurt and Green Chilis and Baked Sweet Potato Bites with Bacon.  I had never had Lentils before and was curious to see how they turned out in the recipe.

We started chopping, dicing, slicing, stewing, sizzling and everything in between until the meal finally started to come together.  Every meal we have cooked thus far has been out of this world amazing.  This meal was also delicious, however, it was lacking in certain areas.  The sweet potatoes were slightly undercooked and we didn’t have an actual masher so I had to “cut” them as if it were flour and butter.  But a little texture never hurt and Diana did cook extra bacon.  Extra bacon always makes everything better.  The stewed lentils were great.  I really enjoyed the Greek yogurt mixed with the cucumbers, rice and green chilis.  The lentils struck me as more of a vegetarian filler, as the flavor was somewhat mediocre.  Diana thought there was something missing with the lentil dish and agreed that is might have been the mistake of using coriander instead of cumin!  Whoops! 

Overall, it was a good, hearty meal.  Perfect comfort food for a cold, snowy night.  After we finished dinner we teamed up to transform the messy cooking area into a clean, sparkling kitchen!  We moved into the living room with our wine and Diana started to scroll through Netflix to find a movie.  I was full and unmotivated and offered no suggestions on what to watch.  She claimed she was just going to click on something and I was just fine with that.  The random click of a button left us to watching the 1991 psychological thriller, Sleeping With The Enemy.  I have seen this movie many times but it has been a number of years since then.  Talk about being underestimated!  This woman sure showed that sleazy man who was boss.

After the movie was over we said good night and I made my way up to the treehouse bedroom I sleep in while at her house.  I fell asleep in a warm, comfortable bed, wondering what cooking adventures are in store for us next week.