- Shannon hasn't been eating a lot of the dinners lately. I've either been cooking for one because we're working opposite schedules or I just haven't been able to interest her in the leftovers. Tonight she ate the dinner and loved it. She said it made her feel comforted and loved, like something her grandmother would have made for her. Considering this was just thrown together as a quick theme dinner, I'd say I got lucky.
I thought that I'd come up with a way to use broccoli stems since the bunches of broccoli that haven't had the stems removed are a lot cheaper. Plus, I personally think that the stems are quite tasty. From that I developed a 'stalk' theme, involving asparagus and celery, the only other stalky things I could think of. The broccoli dish was simple Sauteed Broccoli StemsThis was the lackluster dish of the group. Hardly anything to look at and not particularly flavorful, it at least had some character and tasted unlike what I expected it to, more like shoots in a 5 spice stir fry than broccoli at all.
I was originally just going to make creamed celery, but I had a couple of chicken breasts thawed in the fridge that I wasn't planning on using in the near future, so I thought I'd make Cream of Celery ChickenThis was really quite tasty and a simple way of using up celery sticks. Plus, if you've ever wanted to make a Campbell's soup plus chicken dish from scratch, this would be a perfect recipe to start with. It's comforting, it's creamy and it's filled with celery and dill flavor.
The other dish, Battered Asparagus , should really speak for itself. It's asparagus that's battered and topped with parmesan cheese. If you have any desire to eat asparagus whatsoever you can tell that this is delicious. My toaster, toaster oven and food processor are sold, so making bread crumbs for this was a bit difficult. I scraped at a dried out loaf of bread with a serrated knife until I had enough to barely coat the spears. The light battering was good enough and I ate the entire pound to myself.
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Cherry Lounge
On June 02, 2006 in June
My mother is in town for the stompede this weekend (and to visit her one and only son) and she took Shannon and I out for dinner. The first time I went to the Cherry Lounge was the most awful dining experience I've ever had in my life. It was for lunch and I ordered a chicken curry wrap with half orders of each soup - gin tomato and roasted garlic - neither which sounded particularly appetizing. The gin tomato soup tasted like a tomato martini, the roasted garlic soup almost instantly made my stomach turn and the chicken curry wrap was just overcooked white rice with a whole mess of cilantro and a little bit of shredded chicken. I think someone forgot the curry part of the curry and since, as we all know, I'm not particularly fond of cilantro, I hated it.
I decided to give it another chance. I thought only the drinks were overpriced ( for a cocktail?) but it seems I'd forgotten that the menu was as well.
basic entrees and appetizers. Shannon absolutely hated it. The whole time we were sitting there she kept saying how pretentious this and that was. Instead of sugar for coffee they had stir sticks with crystalized sugar and so on. The whole decor and atmosphere is pretty much summed up as being pretentious. The funny part is that it's located between a KFC and Taco Time, so it doesn't exactly have big city allure.
We didn't order anything to start, but we were given toasted bread with 3 kinds of butter for an appetizer. Regular old butter, garlic butter and a curry saffron butter. I thought the curry butter was perfect for the palette. It really hit hard as soon as it hit your mouth, but then somehow vanished altogether by the time you were done chewing. Toasting the bread is a nice touch to make it seem that much fresher, I suppose.
Shannon ordered a "disassembled" Caesar salad (anchovy, bacon, capers and so forth are on the side instead of mixed in) with morel mushroom PerogiesThe perogies were basically empty and topped with a lot of bacon and sour cream. They were good, but the portion was incredibly small and unsatisfying. My mom ordered some sort of linguine dish with scallops and shrimp. The shrimp were extremely overcooked, but I thought the scallops were delicious (I sample everything at a table when I go to a restaurant.) The pasta was sort of cold and sticky.
For my entree I ordered the (terribly photographed) bison tenderloin. At first I thought I was totally skimped on with a tiny 4 oz medallion, but there was a second one underneath. The asparagus was either under or overdone depending on where on the plate it was located, but that was my only complaint. The dish was very good. The meat was perfectly cooked, the sauce was excellent and flavorful and the risotto, although a bit mushier than creamy, was nice and peppery which really complimented the other flavors.
0 bill for 3 people without drinks or appetizers is a bit ridiculous for what we ordered.
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French Onion Soup
On June 01, 2006 in Unsorted
2 large yellow sweet onions, halved and sliced
2 large red onions, halved and sliced
3 tablespoons butter
3 cups low-sodium beef broth
1 cup dry white wine
1 ounce cognac
1 bay leaf
4 sprigs thyme
4 slices bread
4 ounces gruyere or Swiss cheese, grated
1 ounce parmesan cheese, grated
salt and pepper
