Date night dinner - at home this week

We're heading off to New Orleans for 4 days in October, so we're saving our "Date night" funds for our meals there... so, we cancelled our reservations at House of Prime Rib (which, believe it or night, neither of us has ever been to) in lieu of dinner at home.

We picked up a beautiful, enormous prime rib steak from Pierotti Family (see the post about them) and headed home.

I started a bread salad by brushing a few slices of day-old bread with butter and toasting in the oven until good and dry. Then, the bread got cut up into croutons, and went into a nonstick pan with a bit of salt, pepper & garlic powder. toast again until lightly smoking, then pop into the oven to finish "drying". Meanwhile, I chopped up a gorgeous orange heirloom tomato (courtesy of my friend Kat) and a handful of brown mushrooms, finely diced a red onion, a garlic clove, cilantro & basil. Added a handful of cannelini beans and dressed with some really, really good balsamico, extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and lemon pepper. Added the croutons and tossed, and popped into the fridge to rest a few minutes.

Next, I popped a spaghetti squash into the microwave for a little under 15 minutes. Pulled that out, split it open and scraped out the meat. Made a bit of beurre noisette (butter cooked until light brown and nutty) and drizzed that over the squash. Finished with a dusting of parmaggiano reggiano. This ended up being so ridiculously rich, we both could only eat a few bites. And honestly, I used maybe a tbsp of butter.

The rib steak was simple - season with some Maldon sea salt, fresh ground pepper (pink, white, green & tellicherry), and throw onto the Le Creuset Grillet pan.

The meal was divine - and the beans in the bread salad (which really were almost an afterthought) were phenomenal. We almost went to Soizic for a bit of dessert, but tomorrow is going to be a l-o-n-g day with the grape pick starting at 9am (!!).

Honestly, aside from the requisite cleanup, I really don't know why we go out to eat sometimes.

Comments

[sam]

I read you are going to New Orleans. When i first went there about 8 years ago I had one of the most wonderful meals ever at a restaurant called Nola. 4 years ago I was back in NO again and tried to revist Nola but it was closed for a refurbish.
I thought i would look it up on the web to see if it was still there and tell you about it. i was horrified ? to see it was the restaurant of Emeril Lagasse who I have seen on Food Network, but who is not nearly so charming (to me anyway) as someone like Jamie Oliver. I suddenly realise that not being American I am culturally inept and I have no idea whether Emeril is meant to be cool or not. I would hazard a guess no, but I can't be sure. WHatever, 8 years ago, that restaurant was superb. but today I have no idea...
http://www.emerils.com/restaurants/nola/
maybe you can look it up on the NO chowhound boards, though i am sure you have probably already done your food research.
have fun there!

[Gastronomie]

I did ask about NO on the chowhound board. Sadly, the one place that everyone told us to go, we aren't going to be able to make it to! That's Brigtsens.

Regardless, we have some other lovely reservations, and parties, and it should be fun!