That there is one of the specials — lemongrass chicken with hoisin sauce. Delicious. The husband had the Thai-Italian Love – Panang Curry Bolognese. That was crazy! Who makes pasta with a tomato, coconut and kaffir lime sauce? I didn’t taste it myself, because I was too busy inhaling my sweet lemony chicken. But, he says it was great. And that the spice was “cumulative.” lol

Our server was also very nice and they have this whole vegan menu and they were able to tell me straight away what had dairy in it, so I could avoid it. The food came out fast, despite all the warnings on their menu about it being slow. I had a yummy Malbec blend, which I liked at first, but, then I missed my regular Malbec.

So that was our anniversary. Tomorrow is my birthday. That makes today sandwich day. We celebrate by making sandwiches, ’cause I’m literal like that.

This a steak sandwich. I can’t tell you what kind of marinade is on the steak, ’cause the hubby did that and he was going crazy grabbing things from the pantry. I know it includes tamarind, ginger, garlic, and oil, but there are other dry spices too.

Instead of just using greens and mustard, I mixed up 3 parts mustard to 1 part horseradish, added chopped mint and then mixed all that with broccoli sprouts. I wish I could say the mint was my idea, because it was phenomenal. Try it!

We also made fries from scratch, double fried.

And now I’m eating bits of chocolate birthday cake from the bottom of the pan. He may be a mint genius, but he forgot that “non-stick” is a misnomer.

I’ve set food on fire before, but never on purpose. I think this is also the first time I’ve ever cooked chicken with the skin on. Who knew burning it could be so tasty?

I did, actually. Blackened chicken is a fav. But I never realized I could make it in my own backyard. I did my best. It was actually underdone in the inside, so I should have left it to blacken longer. But all this smoke billowed out from the grill, and when I opened it to peek, the chunks of chicken were literally on fire. This proved too worrisome for me, so I took ‘em off. I went into the project thinking four pieces would be a little wasteful, but it worked out because we just ate the outside bits anyway.

I have things to learn, it seems, about burning food.

The marinade was great though. I love making marinade, hours before I eat. The whole house smells delicious and I get all excited for dinner. And my husband gets all excited because I’m happy and the house smells so good.

I got the recipe off the Food Network. I kinda want to punch that Guy Fieri dude in the face, but, it was a good marinade. I didn’t follow the measurements, because I like extra garlic and citrus, but, I mixed together equal parts soy sauce and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Then I threw in a bunch of pulp. I added in chopped red onion, garlic, sliced ginger, and pepper.

I served it up with some steamed rice and green beans. Yummy!

PS – Like our OCD cutting board?

Sometimes, the answer to, “What’s for dinner?” is right in the backyard. Between the rabbits and the rain, our first go at an herb garden didn’t last beyond July last year. This spring (next weekend in fact), we’ll try again. But in the meantime, we can use the one crop that thrived.

Mint.

It wasn’t that much of a surprise that the mint made it. I’ve been told again and again that it makes a great ground cover. In our yard, the violets are still doing better at that, but, the mint is a close second.

So, for dinner I decided to kick my usual spring rolls up a notch. I read through a few recipes and decided to try three new things. One, add cilantro. Two, use as much mint as cilantro. And three, soak the starch in a zesty marinade.

This third thing meant using rice noodles instead of glass noodles. I mixed up three tablespoons of lime, a tablespoon of soy sauce, two teaspoons of sugar, and a squirt of sriracha. I softened the noodles most of the way through, and then transferred them to this mixture, and they soaked it up.

And here are the rest of ingredients I use in spring rolls: peanuts, cucumber, carrots, cilantro, mint, and shrimp. Not shown: lettuce.

For me, they were perfect. I never deep fry them because I like them to taste fresh. I don’t dip them in sauce for kinda the same reason. I just like to taste them how they are. But, next time I’ll make a dipping sauce for the husband. He liked them, but wanted them to be a little “more.”

Since my husband is headed off to a business trip tomorrow (and a week of fast food), I wanted to make him a nice dinner. He LOVES wasabi, and he loves light meals, so, I thought this recipe for Wasabi Sesame Noodle Salad would be perfect. And it was!

The only change I made was to use light sesame seeds instead of dark, because I already had a stash in my pantry. Actually, I had all the ingredients at home, except for the cucumber and scallions. The trip to the store cost less than $3. It makes me very happy when that happens.

These noodles were delicious. I’m not one to add heat to my food just for the sake of heat. It has to be balanced. This dish was beautifully balanced, with wasabi, sesame oil, and sriracha all playing along nicely.

The Banana Cupcakes with Lemon Icing were actually something I made last week. Since they have nutmeg in them, I knew my husband wouldn’t be the hugest fan. So I planned to take them into work. But then my sister came over and we ate them all. Sorry work. You missed out.

I am so excited about their swaps! The group’s founder and blog editor is down with the whole food allergy thing, which I super duper appreciate, because I can’t eat dairy (whether it’s a severe intolerance or an allergy, the docs don’t know). Eating out can be very tense for me. So I LOVE this idea of going somewhere to trade stuff I’ve made for stuff other people have made from scratch.

If it’s made from scratch, I can know what’s in it. And if it’s made from scratch from people that understand food allergies, I can relax more because they know what to look for in terms of hidden ingredients. For example, are the breadcrumbs in those meatballs from an Italian mix, and thus contain parm cheese? Have you looked at the ingredients in that hot dog roll? Because if it’s a potato roll the second thing listed is milk. Not that anyone would be swapping hot dogs, I don’t think, but still.

Next one, I’m there.

Tonight’s dinner is a variation of a recipe by Chef Chloe. Her recipes have been mentioned on this blog before (yay cupcakes). This one is her Thanksgiving Pizza, which I’ve made a few times since Thanksgiving. It’s my go-to pizza staple nowadays.

Difference number one – I use regular pizza dough. I just don’t have the time on weeknights to make it from scratch. I also leave out the squash. I’m eh about squash. I don’t cook the spinach either, because my husband hates cooked leaves. And I add a LOT more onions than the recipe calls for.

Seriously, caramelized onions are one of the best tasting things on the planet.

So this is an easy recipe to make. In lieu of sauce, just puree a can of white beans, some garlic (I may use more garlic than is called for too), 1/4 cup olive oil, a tbs lemon juice, two tbs water, and some thyme, salt, and pepper. Spread that on the dough. And then top the pizza with sliced apple and caramelized onions. After it’s cooked, add some fresh spinach. Done! Easy! Yummy!

Chef Chloe actually has a book coming out next week. Since I’ve loved every recipe of hers I’ve tried (and I’m not even vegan), I will probably grab it. I’ll let you know what I think. Or if you grab it, let me know what you think.

This year, we started out making some caramel.

Then we threw in some red wine. And then some shallots.

You can probably guess this, but, we reduced it into a demi-glaze.

This got put on top of some juicy filets that the butcher cut special for my husband. I guess the butcher didn’t think the filets in the case were good enough for my husband. I guess they also has a long talk about goat cheese. It pays to be nice to the butcher. They were fantastic cuts, cooked for eight minutes a side.

And for our sides we threw some green beans in a pot with sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, and oil. We also made mashed potatoes (my fav.) with nutmeg in them. I couldn’t taste the nutmeg, but the hubby thought it was very strong. It’s so odd how two people can taste the same food so differently.

So there you have it, our Valentine’s dinner. It was delicious!

* My birthday falls two days before our anniversary, so we also celebrate the “Sandwich Day” in-between. But that is just, “Happy Sandwich Day” with some food. Sandwiches are predictably involved.

Behold, my Beef Shawarma pita.

Despite possessing a few kitchen gadgets, I do not own a large, rotating cone on which to cook meat. Oh well. So my shawarma isn’t real shawarma. But it’s yummy all the same.

I use beef for the meat, cut up into thin strips and marinated in vinegar, garlic, and onions. After it’s done marinating, I throw the whole thing into a skillet. I also cut up some bell peppers for my husband, which I cook up separately. I just don’t like them and I’d rather they didn’t flavor my food.

For the sauce, I mix tahini with lemon juice and garlic. If you have never mixed tahini and lemon together before, try it, because some weird stuff happens. I almost took a picture, but decided it looked too unappetizing. If you add enough lemon juice, it chunks up at some point. I have no idea why. The chemistry is a mystery to me and I can’t find the answer on the internet (if you know, please comment). So just keep adding water until it smooths out again.

For the rest of the toppings I use parsley, raw onions, and a sh!tload of sumac. I love sumac. The edible kind anyway. Poison ivy is a type of sumac and I obviously don’t love that particular aspect of its identity. But it has a sort of lemony taste to it. It’s tangy goodness!

So, throw all that in a pita, and there you have it. Others add pickles, or tomatoes. Or they add yogurt. I have to leave the yogurt out. This is probably why I prefer shawarma to the gyro. Gyros just don’t taste as good without the yogurt. So, to me, that means they aren’t as good. But my husband used to live in Athens, so, I doubt I’ll ever convince him of that. It’s entertaining to try though!

But I love schnitzel, so, I decided to make some for dinner tonight.

I tried out this Beef Milanese with Winter “Slaw” recipe from Bon Appetit. It was a new take for me. I usually go warm to counter all the lemon I use, and add nutmeg to the breading. This recipe added honey to the lemon. Ooo.. it was nice. You couldn’t taste the sweetness, but, it just cut the lemon a bit. And the dressing wasn’t poured directly on the meat, but instead went on the slaw.

I’m not a fan of cabbage, so I used radicchio instead. It looked the same. It tasted different. It worked anyway. The slaw had a lot of piquant stuff going on (onion, dill, lemon), but it all balanced nicely and nothing stuck out. It tasted quite light and delicious.

I wonder how this “slaw” would taste on a burger.

So, I’m super excited to take schnitzel in another direction. I should just rename this blog “The Schnitzel Blog” because I talk about it so much. I promise to update more.