Olympic Themed Sunday Night Dinner

My friends gather every Sunday for dinner.  It is a tradition that began before I moved to Chicago, and has continued for 5+ years.  Sunday Night Dinner is one of the highlights of my week.  It is quality time set aside with some of my closest friends.  We always enjoy recapping the events of the weekend, making plans for the week to come, and sharing food.  Dinner hosts rotate casually, there is no list or assigned dates, you host when you can, but things work out so we have dinner almost every Sunday.  The host makes the main dish, and everyone else brings appetizers, side dishes, and desserts.  Usually about 8 people attend dinner so there are many dishes to try.  Sometimes Sunday Night Dinner is assigned a theme.  Pasts themes have included: Childhood Foods, Minnie's (all the food was mini, in honor of a Chicago restaurant that had just closed), the color Blue, the Oscars, Christmas in July, Asia, Halloween, and Mad Men.

Charles and I jumped at the chance to host an Olympics themed SND since he is British and the Olympics are in London.  We instructed our friends to choose a country to represent and make a dish from that country.  For those who wanted to go the extra mile the could also wear an outfit to represent their country.  Charles finally got to wear the Union Jack bow tie I bought him for his birthday, even though he made Greek food.  Our Australian friend, Adrian, wore a jersey and brought Fosters beer.  Dre and Dimo represented Germany by wearing the colors of the German flag and bringing beer, brats, and sauerkraut.  John represented Italian sausage, Dana represented Thailand with Spring Rolls, Woody and Mary represented Sweden with Swedish Meatball cupcakes (Swedish Meatballs topped with Mashed Potato and Cranberry Sauce), Caroline represented Spain with Potatas Bravas, and I also represented Greece and made Moussaka.  I finally followed through with taking photos to document all the delicious foods my friends prepared.  My friends are a creative bunch, and they all did a great job tackling the theme.  We decided that people take the themed dinner more seriously and we always end up with more food then we normally do.

Thank you to everyone who came to dinner!  Later this week I will be posting the recipes for the Greek dishes that Charles and I made.  Here are photos of the delicious dishes my friends made:

Charles's Taramosalata

Charles's Tzatziki with Pita

Caroline's Potatas Bravas

Woody and Mary's Swedish Meatball Cupcakes

Dre and Dimo's Brats, Beer, and Sauerkraut

John's Italian Sausage and Peppers

Dana's Spring Rolls with Peanut Sauce

Chicken and Pesto Pasta

This is one of the quickest meals that I have made.  All in all it took only about 20 minutes to make.  I made this on a busy Thursday night when we wanted to have a quick meal before heading to the driving range for a couple hours.

Feel free to add more ingredients to this dish. Mushrooms, pine nuts, or garlic would be great additions.

Serves 2
You will need:
2 Chicken Breasts
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
Pasta
1/3 cup Pesto
1 Tomato, diced
3 tablespoons Parmesan
Salt and Pepper

Step 1:
Put water on the stove under high heat to boil for the pasta.  Then dice the chicken breasts.  Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet.  Generously salt and pepper the chicken.  Then add the chicken to the skillet.

Step 2:
Add 1/3 of the box of pasta to the water once it boils. As the pasta boils, keep an eye on the chicken. It will take about 4-5 minutes per side to cook, just make sure there is no pink in the middle.

Step 3:
The pasta and the chicken should be ready at about the same time. Drain the pasta and return it to the same pot. Pour the chicken over the pasta.

Step 4:
Using the same skillet you used for the chicken, heat up the pesto and tomatoes for 2-3 minutes, until hot. Then pour over the pasta. Add the Parmesan, stir, and serve.

Steak with Woody's Marinade

Our first meal at home as husband and wife!

Charles and I returned home late last Thursday and were so excited to spend Friday together.  I think that spending a weekday off in your home city can be the best because you can go to places that are normally packed on weekend and get in much more easily!  We spent the morning unpacking gifts and then spent the afternoon at our favorite taco place Big Star.

Saturday we decided to have a low key night at home.  Peapod delivered groceries on Saturday morning - so I was able to cook again!  I must admit that I did miss cooking a little.  I can't remember the last time I went 2 weeks+ without cooking anything.

I decided to cook a meal based on Charles's favorite foods, it was the least I could do after he planned such an incredible honeymoon.  Although this meal looks like it may have taken a while, I made it in under an hour (minus the time the steak marinated).

I am pleased to tell everyone that many wedding gifts contributed to making and serving this meal.  Thank you to: The Corgans/Pelleritos for the grill pan, Hanley for the steak knives, the Olcotts for the wine glasses, Helen and Dom for the bakeware, and the Blairs for the meat tenderizer!

Credit goes out to Woody whose marinade recipe I used!

For the Steak You Will Need:
Steak
Red Wine
Worcestershire Sauce
Soy Sauce
Olive Oil

Step 1:
Combine equal parts wine, worcestershire sauce, and soy sauce in a glass pan and let marinate for at least 3 hours.

Step 2:
Drizzle a little olive oil onto a grill pan (or any pan).  Heat the pan over high heat.  Then remove the steak from the marinade and generously coat with salt and pepper.

Step 3:
Add the steak to the pan and cook for about 4 minutes a side, until the steak had browned and there are strong grill marks.

Step 4:
At this point the steak will be rare.  To cook the steak more, put under the broiler in the oven, and cook for about 10-15 minutes more for medium temperature steak.

Greek Food

"You no eat meat? It's ok, I make lamb." That is one of our favorite quotes from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and something Charles kept saying on our trip. As I have previously mentioned, we loved all the food in Greece- the only problem was that we were eating too much of it! Greek portions are much larger than portions in other countries, they are actually on par with American portion sizes. When you are traveling and eating breakfast, lunch and dinner in restaurants its easy to over eat. After 2 days we replaced lunch with an afternoon snack.

I took a few of photos of the delicious meals we tried to share with you. I will definitely be making some of these dishes in the near future!

A platter of Greek appetizers.  The tomato fritters in the center were my favorite.  Also included: fava bean puree, tzatziki, grape leaves, eggplant puree, and fried feta cheese.

Moussaka - Santorini's famous dish, made with ground beef, potatoes and cheese.

Gyro platter.

Tuesday Tip: How to Make Powdered Sugar

What do you do when you have 5 pounds of granulated sugar, but the recipe calls for Powdered Sugar?  Pour the granulated sugar into the blender and make powdered sugar.  I recently tried this and it worked pretty well, the consistency was similar, I probably could have blended it longer.  It is definitely a great trick to know!  I read that it works best when you blend only a cup or two at a time.

I'm Back! And life is a bit different now.

Charles and I returned from our fabulous honeymoon on Thursday. Greece was incredibly gorgeous and the people were so genuinely friendly. (Go to Greece right now- it is deserted at cheap these days!) We both loved the food- so much do that Charles insisted on buying a cookbook so we can make Greek food at home.

Upon returning home everyone has been asking if things feel different now. Our relationship feels exactly the same- living together for two years was a lot like being married. We are very glad we lived together first- we can't imagine taking on moving after the wedding! There is one major difference in our lives these days and that is that we finally have free time!!! Charles is done with grad school and the wedding planning is over and we can finally relax. We can also spend much more time together. Instead of eating dinner together 3 or 4 nights a week we can dine together every night. Last night we had an impromptu dinner date at Cafe Ba Ba Reba, one of our favorite restaurants. In the past going to dinner together on a week night was nearly impossible with Charles's school schedule. I am very excited to spend more time with my husband, and since one of my favorite pastimes is cooking and his is eating, you can expect lots more blog posts!!

Irish Coffee Chocolate Cake

Important life events need to be celebrated with cake!  Cupcakes are a huge trend these days, but there is something about a cake that makes things more festive.  My friend Zinni finally completed grad school - and he happens to be one of the biggest chocoholics I know.  I decided to take some of Zinni's favorite things and combine them in a cake.  I started with a Devil's Food Chocolate Cake Mix, and added espresso.  Then I made two types of frosting, one with whiskey and one chocolate.  My friends loved the end result - the subtle whiskey flavor combined with the rich chocolate and touch of coffee has a hit!

As a side note - at first glance my friends were hoping that I had made the same cake that I made for Zinni's birthday last October, which some of my friends actually said was their favorite cake.  That cake was a chocolate cake with Bailey's frosting topped with chocolate ganache.  I haven't posted the recipe - but I will soon, and I might just make that cake for Zinni's birthday this year!

You will need:
For the Cake:
1 box of Devil's Food Cake Mix (plus the eggs, water, and oil that requires)
2 shots of espresso
Butter to grease the pans

For the Whiskey Frosting:
1 stick of butter, room temperature
1/4 cup of Whiskey, I used Johnny Walker Black Label
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla
3 cups Powdered Sugar

For the Chocolate Frosting:
I used this recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/chocolate-frosting-recipe/index.html

Step 1:
Preheat the oven to the temperature listed on the cake box.  Follow the directions on the cake box except for this: pour the espresso into a measuring cup and add water until it equals 1 cup (or whatever the amount of water is supposed to be).

Step 2:
I like to make cakes with thinner layers (which also means more frosting!), so I fill each cake pan half way - which means I can make a four layer cake.  Keep a close eye on the cake since the cook time will be quick - about 15-20 minutes.

Step 3:
Once all of the cake layers are fully cooked, let them cool.  While they cool mix the frostings.  For the whiskey frosting just use a mixer to combine all the ingredients.

Step 4:
Assemble the cake.  You can get creative - I chose to use the chocolate frosting between the layers and then put the whiskey frosting on the outside of the cake.  The chocolate frosting is a bit running - but it still did the job.