Date Night--Wednesday June 25

For the next several weeks, maybe months Date Nights are going to present several real challenges. The first challenge is that, my kitchen is soon to be gone.  I don't know for how long and it will come back to me in stages.  But it will be so worth it.  (Keep checking my blog...there will be a photo record of the craziness.)

Second, I've got to do them on the cheap.  That means no purchased flowers from the market to adorn my table.

That doesn't have to mean no flowers at all though.  Probably the neighbors and most definitely the landscapers would consider these weeds.  Well, friends, one girl's weeds are another girls flower arrangement!  Tada!

By the by, Josh loved the little yellow flowering weeds!  Amelia, he wants me to have a fresh bunch for your dinner with us on Sunday.

On to the rest of dinner.  There is a new show on the Food Network that I love.  It's called The Kitchen. Basically, it's a talk show with a whole lot of cooking happening at the same time.  Anyway, a few weeks ago, I guess it was around Father's Day, they did a show showcasing cheaper cuts of beef.  2 of the cuts (flank and skirt) I know and use regularly, the third one (hanger), I've eaten in restaurants but never cooked at home.

Can't say that anymore!  I made one last night and it was good.  Really good. I used this recipe for the marinade, but Josh thought it was so good I could treat it like a filet (I do love it when he talks cooking to me)--just salt and pepper.  The flavor was really good and it had beautiful marbling--that means fat.  Made for a very unctuous mouth feel. From a WW perspective not so great, but from a $ perspective it was at $6 a pound.

Now I can't just make meat.  Well, I could, but that's not really my deal.  So what goes with meat?  Potatoes.  I hadn't made mashed potatoes in a while, and I needed buttermilk for dessert so mashed it was.  They were a little tangier than usual as I didn't have sour cream, but did have plain greek yoghurt.  Snipped some chives from my jungle, and away we went.

Josh loves french cut green beans.  I found some frozen, so that finished up dinner.

(fuzzy picture doesn't get larger...I'm so embarrassed!)

Now for dessert. I've never made an upside down anything cake.  But Josh and I were watching Good Eats on the Cooking Channel and saw this recipe.  I actually had all the ingredients except for the buttermilk on hand! It was purely providential!

And it too was delicious.

 Before baking.

So that's why they call it an upside down cake!

Well, that concludes this weeks installment of "Date Night."  We may be taking a picnic to the Botanic Garden next week.  Those pics will be fun!

happy cooking