Happy Anniversary to US!!

Our 8th anniversary is on Wednesday and Josh is taking me out to dinner.  Not wanting that to be our only celebration, I made a really nice dinner last night.

I'll start with appetizers.  Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms.  Now, I really just used this as inspiration.  I minced the mushroom stems and added Italian sausage to the stuffing.  They were very tasty and we ate them up.  We, however, could not finish our dinners as a result.  (That's okay...no more cooking for me this week!)

I made martinis to accompany our appetizers.  Hendricks gin, vermouth, and a twist of lemon.  Cannot get any more classic than that.

Now to dinner.  I made individual beef wellingtons.  Yum!  I did not use the pate called for in the recipe and I added thyme to the mushroom duxelle.

The wellingtons are accompanied by mashed potatoes (duh) and Brussels Sprout Hash with Caramelized Shallots.  Delish!  Tender and flavorful and not too "brussels sprouty."

Now to dessert.  Oh dessert!  I made (drum roll please)  Creme Brulee.  I do not have a kitchen torch; the broiler had to do.  I followed the indredients part of this recipe.  The technique I used was outlined by one of the recipe reviewers, ChefPeon.  Her methodology made a lot more sense to me and was, in fact, less labor intensive (and scary) than the oen in the recipe.

We had coffee with dinner.  But that's not all.  I had his idea to serve Josh a whisky flight. So I selected three of his whiskys (he said I chose the right ones! yay me!!) and I had a port pairing (we have two ports so I had a little of each.)

If you look closely you can see the single malt glasses and the port glasses.  Yes we do have a lot of specialty barware.

That's all for me .  Yesterday was a long day of cooking (I started at 11 with dessert).  But it's a new day and we have our leftovers (no sprouts!) for todaay.

happy cooking!