This evening was a particularly nice spring evening and we kicked off the date night dinner with an appetizer of fried oysters, followed by a wine walk around the neighborhood (so we would’t feel guilty!) before settling in for the main course. The nice thing about this menu is that all the work is up front on the appetizer. The main course requires very little prep, just timing. Main thing is to cut up the potatoes before even starting on the appetizer and pre-heating the oven while making the oysters. I’m all about efficiency, particularly on a date night, so we can maximize the enjoyment part and minimize the food prep part.
When I first started making fried oysters as a date night appetizer, I was buying them fresh from the seafood counter. But as we’ve gotten busier and date nights have become less about the production and more about spending time together talking. Unless you’re a pro, shucking 12 oysters for an appetizer is a job. So I’ve been buying [these] from Publix and while I’m all about ‘the fresher, the better,’ I haven’t been disappointed yet.
This simple recipe is my go to for Greek style roasted potatoes. They are so good and so versatile to go with so many dishes. When shopping for red or new potatoes, I like to hand select small ones that can be cut in half or quarters to make bite sized pieces. I’ve found that when buying the bag, you tend to get some big ones mixed in that don’t look so great when cutting them up and I’m really all about the aesthetics & the plating, so I want my wedges to look good! I also use an old cake pan to roast mine. It’s the perfect size for dinner for 2 and I also like to try and keep at least 1 cut side down which will give the potatoes a slightly crispy texture on that side.
Here’s a pizza recipe that rocks for an awesome date night experience. Don’t settle for Little Caesar’s when you can make your own gourmet flatbread! For those of you who just want the recipe, I’ll make it quick. For those who want some tips on making flatbreads, hang with me to the bottom of the post!
For Laree & my Date Night Dinner this week, we basically combined a series of appetizers into a meal. I got inspired for this by a couple of things. First of all, how often have you fixed a killer appetizer that was so good you weren’t hungry for the main course after eating it all up? Happens to us all the time. And with all the spring time fruits and vegetables hitting their peak, I wanted a smorgasbord of fresh and healthy flavors that would satisfy and celebrate the beginning of summer and kind of balance each other out and create a full meal.
When I’m looking for a quick and simple appetizer for dinner, a bruschetta seems to be my go to option these days. Probably because this is like a favorite pair of jeans that you can dress up or dress down depending on the mood and what ingredients that I have on hand.
My Newest Recipe
I threw this together last night just on a whim and it turned out great. I love the flavors of sun-dried tomatoes, basil & feta cheese. I also did this same thing with Gorgonzola and it was equally as good.
1 baguette or loaf of French bread (depending on what size you want your bruschetta)
Olive Oil
Sun dried tomatoes (the kind in the jar in oil work great!)
Fresh Basil
Feta Cheese (I prefer the feta that comes in brine, but any will do)
Kosher Salt
Pepper (preferably fresh ground)
Directions
The directions for this boil down to putting the ingredients in a bowl, season to taste and then put on the baguette slices. But here’s my attempt at something that at least sounds a little more official…
Slice baguette diagonally into slices between 1/2″ – 1″ thick (this really depends on how you like it). Slice as many slices as you plan on eating. If I’m making a date night appetizer for 2, that usually means 8-10 slices.
Arrange baguette slices on a baking sheet and brush tops completely with olive oil. This creates a moisture barrier that keeps the juices of the bruschetta toppings from making the bread soggy.
Bake in a 400° oven until crispy, but not burned. If you’re in a hurry, you can broil the baguette slices, but you really need to keep an eye on them so they don’t burn.
While you’re waiting on the little toasts, you basically want to prep the bruschetta toppings by putting the sun-dried tomatoes, chopped basil and feta in a bowl and season to taste. I usually use about the same amounts (measured by mass, not weight) of each of the three, but this is where you want to eyeball it. For me that usually works out to 3-4 forkfuls of sun-dried tomatoes, about 1/2 of the basil that comes in one of those pre-packaged fresh herbs packets at the grocery store and 3-4 spoonfuls of feta for my 8-10 slices. Chop up the basil. If you’re using the sun-dried tomatoes in oil, there will probably be enough oil dripping off the tomatoes to moisten the mix. If not, drizzle a little olive oil in the bowl. Don’t forget the salt & pepper. Stir to mix and spoon on the baguette slices. Arrange in some cool pattern on an aesthetically pleasing serving dish and serve with wine. You’ll thank me.
The beautiful thing about this fast & easy recipe is that if you’re running short of topping for your slices, you can mix up more on the fly!
After eating so heavy throughout the holidays, I’m always ready to try some lighter fare in January and this weekend we’re back to seafood. We had a pretty busy Saturday so that meant by the time we got around to talking about dinner, it was after 4:00 in the afternoon and I went for my “go to” meal of tilapia. I’m calling the entree Pan-Seared Panko Tilapia. We often have grits as a side dish for seafood, but I’ve been itching to try my hand at a soufflé, so I attempted a Pepper Jack Cheese Grits Soufflé and then added an Arugula Salad.
I’ve been on this appetizer kick for a little while so I wanted something that was light but had a little kick to it. As I wandered around the grocery store, I thought some bruschetta would be just the thing, so I cobbled together some stuff to make a Spicy Shrimp & Arugula Bruschetta.
Appetizer: Shrimp & Arugula Bruschetta
This is one that I totally made up while walking around the grocery store. It has a southwestern flare to it and a bit of a kick.
1 Baguette or some french bread
Some Olive Oil
Enough shrimp for 2 people preferably peeled and deveined (I used 1/4 pound and it was just about right… remember, this is an appetizer. If you go with the french bread over the baguette, you’ll need a little more of just about everything since the slices are bigger.)
About 1/2 can Lime & Cilantro Ro*Tel (yep, right out of the can, drained)
A handful of Arugula (slightly chopped)
Salt & Pepper (preferably course kosher salt & freshly ground pepper)
Some white wine
I prepared the bruschetta before even thinking about getting the main dinner together. I’ve started doing this with the appetizer so we could decompress from the “getting the kids down” ritual and take the edge off our appetite. Especially since I knew this evening it would take a little while to cook the main course. Not to mention it’s better not to drink the wine on an empty stomach if I want dinner to turn out decent!
Slice the baguette diagonally into about 8-10 pieces or however many you think you’re going to eat for the appetizer. Brush each piece with olive oil and arrange on a baking sheet. We’re going to bake these at 350° until just before they turn brown (keep an eye on them!). The olive oil forms a kind of protective coating so the juices of the topping don’t get them soggy.
In a small frying pan, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil and saute the shrimp (peeled and deveined) until pink. Add a little kosher salt & pepper to the shrimp while sauteing. Remove to a plate for a few minutes. We’re going to add it back once we’ve cooked the other ingredients and we’re going to chop them up a little, so get a cutting board ready. Add the drained Ro*Tel to the pan and swish it around a bit with the oil. Pour in some white wine, around 1/4 cup, and let it reduce, stirring it around. As it reduces but isn’t yet dry, add the shrimp back (chop it up a little into chunks if you haven’t already), and add the arugula (it should be coarsely chopped too). Sometime while you’re doing this you’ll need to take the baguette slices out of the oven and set aside (keep a hot pad ready!). Toss ingredients together until the arugula is slightly wilted, then remove from heat and spoon over the baguette slices. Arrange them on some cool looking serving dish and serve with a white wine like a savignon blanc.
Main Dish: Pan Seared Tilapia with Pepper Jack Grits Soufflé
The Grits
First I’m going to prep the grits since they will bake for around 40-45 minutes. This was a challenge for me since all the recipes I found for a similar souffle made a lot… usually calling for at least a cup of grits. If you’ve never cooked grits before, that’s a ton of grits. For my purposes, I’m cooking for two, so here’s my modified version. You’ll probably need to play with it a little and it still makes too much. I just threw the extra away.
Soufflés are basically made using egg yolks and egg whites to make the dish puffy and light. So the basic process is to make the grits, add the flavoring of your choice (in this case pepper jack cheese flavor) then the beaten egg whites and bake until fluffy. If it were always that simple…
1/2 cup grits
1 1/2 cup water
salt
1/4 stick of butter
1/2 cup pepper jack cheese (more or less to taste)
2 eggs, separated
Dash of cayenne pepper (if desired)
Some 1 cup ramekins, greased (custard dishes will do, but ramekins look a lot better)
Preheat the oven to 350°. Cook the grits per the package directions. I used Quaker grits with the 2 serving directions and it was still too much. Cook the grits until smooth. Add butter, pepper jack cheese and egg yolks (and cayenne if desired). Remove from heat and stir until smooth. Let the grits cool while you prepare the eggs. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form but they are not dry. After the grits have cooled for a few minutes, gently fold the egg whites in, but don’t mix too much. Spoon grits mixture into the ramekins, place them on a baking sheet and bake for 40 minutes until puffy and golden brown on top. Keep an eye on them, every oven is different. This will probably make around 6 ramekins with grits left over.
The Fish
While the grits are baking, prepare the fish. I’ve found that 4 fillets at the grocery store is fine for 2. Sometimes we have a fillet left over and sometimes we don’t. Tilapia is great because it’s a mild fish that most folks like and it’s also usually pretty cheap at the super market. Smell it before you buy though. Don’t be embarrassed to ask. Trust me, you don’t want to eat fishy fish for your date night dinner.
4 Tilapia fillets
Olive oil
Panko bread crumbs
White Cornmeal
Parmesan cheese (plain old grated Kraft will do just fine)
Cracked fresh pepper
Some buttermilk or a couple egg whites (whichever you happen to have on hand… this is for the wash to coat the fish)
Lemon slices (for the garnish)
You can bake or pan fry this dish, but tonight I pan seared it because I wanted to little more of a crunch to the fish. I guess that kind of matched the appetizer and also is a sort of balance for the fluffy grits and the salad.
Wash the tilapia and pat it dry with paper towels. When the grits have about 10-15 minutes, add a few tablespoons of olive oil to a frying pan and heat over medium to med-high heat. Combine roughly equal parts of the panko bread crumbs and the cornmeal. Probably 1/3 cup of each will do for 4 fillets, but you basically want to have enough to coat the fish. Add about half as much grated Parmesan cheese along with enough cracked fresh pepper to where you can see the specks and mix it all up in a bowl or something that is big enough to make sure you can evenly coat the fillets. I usually use a glass pie shell, which is convenient since it doesn’t take up too much space in the dishwasher. Soak the tilapia fillets (I usually do 1 or 2 at a time) in either a bowl of buttermilk or beaten egg whites to coat thoroughly. Dredge the fillets in the panko/cornmeal/Parmesan cheese mixture until evenly coated on both sides and pan sear for 3-4 minutes on each side or until the fish is thoroughly cooked. The breading should be slightly golden brown and crispy. Remove to a plate with a paper towel. Sear remaining fillets.
The Salad
This salad is probably too simple. Just some Arugula, some fresh grated Parmesan or Romano cheese (you can use the stuff out of the shaker, but for presentation the fresh grated looks and tastes much better), and the salad dressing of your choice. For this recipe I prefer Brianna’s Real French Vinaigrette (the one with the artichoke on the front), to me it’s the perfect compliment for the peppery arugula.
Then plate, serve and enjoy, again with that same Savignon Blanc if you have any left over after the appetizer and make it a Date Night!
It seems like Laree & I have been in a “steak night” rutfor quite a while. In fact, it seems like since school started in the fall, that we haven’t gotten caught up and that our Saturdays have been packed with either projects that didn’t get done during the week or with some of the activities that we’re over-committed to that my usual ritual of thumbing through the latest issue of Bon Apetite for recipe ideas has gone totally by the wayside. So, as you can probably imagine, we get to 5:00 on Saturday evening & we are looking at each other saying, “What do you want to do for date night?”
Sure, we’ve been through some ruts before, like the “Chinese Take Out” rut and the “Let’s Just Have Fish Again” rut, but those are usually short lived. But it seems like this fall we’ve really been through a long rut… Steak Night. I guess part of the longevity of the steak night rut is that we both really love a good steak and if you’re going to have a fall back routine, throwing a steak on the grill isn’t a bad one. But after what seems like many weeks now, as much as I love steak, I’m starting to yearn for a different experience, or at least something to kick it up a notch.
And so, again around 5:00 on Saturday, when I finally remembered to think about our Date Night I had my yearning for something different. And again, no time to prep. The conversation goes something like this:
“Have you thought about what you want for date night?” (as if to say, “hey, I’ve been racking my brain and haven’t come up with anything”. Yea, right!)
“Hmmm, I don’t know… Let’s think…”
“Well, we could always do steaks again.”
“You know I always love a good steak.”
“Ok, let’s just do steak. What do you want with your steak…”
And so it continues…
And again, I find myself at the neighborhood grocery store wandering around, with no plan, thinking about what would go with steak that we haven’t already had too many times. And so, I had an idea that turned out pretty good and kicked it up a notch.
First, I have to say that in addition to our steak rut, we’ve been in a sweet potato rut. It’s like the domino effect. We love steak and so that’s the fall back plan. And in my opinion, nothing goes with a steak quite like a sweet potato, they become the secondary fallback plan. I usually like to bake a sweet potato in the oven at 400 degrees for something like a hour and 15 minutes until it’s totally mushy inside. Kind of the standard approach. Did that last week.
This week we’re still going to do sweet potatoes, but tonight I’m going to cut them in chunks and season with cinnamon sugar and rosemary. There’s a nice fall balance there to go with the season. I’m going to drop my chunks from 2 sweet potatoes (after I’ve skinned them) into a large freezer bag. I’m using canola oil tonight instead of my usual olive oil, because I think the olive oil clashes a little with the cinnamon. Then I’m going to season liberally with both the cinnamon sugar (just cinnamon is fine too but I want to get them extra sweet) and rosemary leaves. Then I’ll place them on a baking pan in the middle rack of my oven and bake them on 400 degrees until they get a dark brown crispy crust in places, usually about 25 minutes or so. Keep watching them so you get the texture and color how you like. This part is totally personal preference. Don’t forget to shake the pan a couple times during cooking, just to rough them up a bit.
Asparagus with Pancetta
Since my mom always taught me to have something green, and because green contrasts so nice with the orange of the potatoes and the brown char-grilled steak, I’m adding asparagus to tonight’s lineup. I love oven roasted asparagus with a little olive oil, kosher salt & cracked pepper, but tonight I’m going to add a little twist. I picked up some pancetta in the deli section. Pancetta is basically an Italian bacon and it’s pretty expensive per pound, but I’m just getting enough, sliced paper thin but not falling apart, to wrap around the stems of my asparagus, probably something like 3 oz or 15 slices. This is going to lend a nice subtly smokey flavor to my asparagus. I’m simply going to roll them around the stems of my asparagus – they’re not big enough to wrap the entire asparagus and that’s not the look I want anyway – sprinkle them with kosher salt & fresh cracked pepper, and bake them when my potatoes are done for about 10-15 minutes, again depending on how much you want them done. I like them before the asparagus starts to turn brown from baking and still have a little crunch to them.
As for the steaks, that’s simple. I usually buy supermarket steaks and I prefer ribeyes, but I’ll take a New York Strip too and if the cut is good, maybe they’re an inch thick. Grill those guys over a layer of gray charcoal for 4 minutes on each side for medium rare (my preference) or 5 minutes for medium (Laree’s preference). Remember, different grills cook differently and it depends a lot on the thickness of the steaks. Just find your sweet spot and remember it.
I’ve started the potatoes as soon as i got back from the store and could get them cut up. They take the longest. Then I can lend Laree a hand getting the kids down early. I know my coals will take about 25 minutes to get good and hot and that’s good for some talk time with Laree. I’ll plan on putting the asparagus in just before I actually start cooking the steaks. We’re hungry & have a little time to kill, so I’m thinking appetizer!
My Antipasto Board
Here’s something you may want to try, or take the idea and run with it. I’m going to surprise Laree with an antipasto board tonight. Since she loves pickled stuff, I’m going with a sweet and sour idea. Some sweet baby gherkin pickles, some kalamata olives (both out of the jar) and some extra sharp white cheddar cheese squares (the supermarket was a little weak on artisan cheeses tonight). I arranged these guys in nice little piles on a wooden cutting board for a nice rustic look. Make sure to put the pickles and olives on a paper towel first to absorb the juice. We don’t want a big puddle on the cutting board taking away from the effect!
Add a red wine with some kick to it like a Cabernet Sauvignon and a bottle of San Pellegrino or whatever sparkling water you prefer, a couple candles, and whatever playlist you think fits the mood (tonight mine is Norah Jones and Alison Krauss) and make it a Date Night!
