The last 3 days have been a little challenging.
Though I have put in a request to get out of work early I started preparing for this meal Tuesday night. I made the pink peppercorn butter Tuesday. That was super easy, and tasty.
Last night was.... less good. I made my vinaigrette no problem even though I made the recipe up without tasting it I knew approximately what the proportions needed to be and it turned out really great. I even forgot to add the lemon zest and it was fine. Then there was the mousse...
I always forget what a huge pain in the ass mousse is. Next year I think I'll make the penultimate valentines day dessert (strawberry shortcake), rather than the ultimate since it's such a huge headache. Anyway, basically what happened was this: my boyfriend had done the grocery shopping, and in spite of the fact that I told him I needed 6oz of chocolate he bought only 4oz. Simple mistake, especially given that Ghirardelli bars look so huge, but are super thin. I was using a recipe from Bon Appetit, against my better judgement I might add, even though it looked different from my Mom's recipe I went with it. I didn't notice the chocolate issue until my egg-espresso-sugar mixture was already finished. I yelled a bunch of expletives and ran from the house. I went to the closest (and certainly not cheapest market), grabbed a bar of chocolate and ran back. Even now I could have been okay, if I wasn't so flustered that my mind wasn't working. Instead of doing the smart thing and warming the chocolate separately I did the stupid thing and re-warmed my egg mixture. Of course it broke, but I was still being an idiot so I thought "Maybe it will be okay, the chocolate isn't scorched..." Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. So I beat my egg whites, added about half. It still wasn't fluffy, but I was still being an idiot so I thought "Maybe it will be okay, maybe this recipe is just weird." Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. It WAS a weird recipe, but not THAT weird.
Needless to say, I ended up in my kitchen at 10:30 at night covered with some very strange lumpy chocolate whipped cream, which was actually delicious but not mousse, crying over all the ingredients and time I had wasted. I immediately called my mom and talked over the best way to re-make it. So I have to do that later today. Hopefully that will be the final issue for my Valentine's Day dinner.
Dinner went off without a hitch last night. Everything tasted good, the presentation was nice. I actually spent some time on table setting. We made the rest of the house dark and then shone a single track light onto our dinner table. Vivaldi was playing in the background. It was really nice to just sit and talk and eat. Rather than watching a movie or a show with dinner. Not that Chris and I don't talk and hang out all the time, but it was nice to not have the screen presence.
My goals for next Valentine's Day: 1) To have spent more time having dinner with Chris, rather than along side him. 2) To let my meat rest more often (see the main course post).
Links to the recipes below.
Sides
Main Course
Dessert
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