A Dinner Feast of Love to Celebrate Our 6th Wedding Anniversary

For our 6th wedding anniversary (year of iron) which was on May 17, 2012, I decided to home-made a 4-course meal instead of dining out in some over-prices, mediocrely tasted "fancy" restaurant.  However, since May 17 of this year was a Thursday, I had to wait till Sunday to create the feast.  I will talk about the appetizer and 1st course a bit later.  However, before I might forget.  I paired the whole meal with Beringer Pinot Grigio.  It was a perfect white to go with a all seafood meal.  Now let me focus on this main course.  I got four surprisingly inexpensivelobster tails from Harris Teeter.  I applied a secret sauce recipe to marinate the lobster tails for about 2 hours ahead of cooking.  I got some prosciutto from Harris Teeter which was used to wrap around those giant sea scallops I also got from Harris Teeter.  I secured them with strategically strip-down rosemary stem.  Both lobster tails and scallops were cooked on grill. 

The side dish I made for our main course was spring green rice with spinach-shallot butter.  I used brown rice and made my own spinach-shallot butter from scratch.  I also add some shredded Gruyere cheese to the rice.  The brown rice came out as green rice with perfect color, smell, texture, and taste.  Since the rice was very low in sodium, it perfectly complimented with the rather salty lobster tails and scallops.

Now, let's me come back and talk about the appetizer and first course.  I had shrimp cocktail as appetizer and a hot crab and artichoke dip with pita bread as first course.  The shrimp cocktail required no skill. because I had to do was to boil them and served them with cocktail sauce.  I love this easy, breezy, delightful appetizer.

As for the hot crab and artichoke dip, I did a lot of "fine" chopping, from red bell pepper, artichoke to green onion and crab meat.  I also made my own roux so the crab dip mixture would be able to hold together well.  There was a side story about obtaining the crab meat though.  It began with me wanting to buy some jumbo crab meat chuck.  I found it in a giant can at the local Harris Teeter.  I dropped it in my shopping cart without paying attention to the price.  After I paid up at the cash register, I thought to myself that the grand total was awfully high.  I looked at the receipt and instantly spotted an item with a hefty price tag - $33.  I screamed silently, "What the hell?"  It was for that giant can of crab meat.  I honestly had two seconds of hesitation contemplating keeping it for 2 reasons.  One was the fact that I desperately wanted to make a crab dip.  Two was my good intention not to be cheap on any special occasion.  But quickly, my logic slashed me out of my hesitating thoughts.  I immediately made an about-face and brought the can to the customer services for a refund.  When the girl at the customer services rang up the can herself, she too let out a scream which wasn't a silent one.  She said she couldn't "blame" me for wanting to return the item.  After successfully returning the can that was as heavy and pricy as gold, I continued on my quest for real crab meat.  To make the long story short, I later did find some premium crab meat from the seafood department in the good old Wal-Mart.  I later asked my husband how much he would dare to guess for that giant can from Harris Teeter, he was nowhere close.  I was just glad that I got my mission accomplished and got real crab meat to cook with.  It would sadden me if I had to resort to the infamous fake intimation crab meat or worst skip the crab meat all together.  Who wants some crab-less crab dip?  Hahhahaaaa 

By the way, the crab dip baked in a brand-new adorable scalloped edge oval green baking dish fresh out of the oven let out of an amazing aroma that was still lingering throughout the downstairs area even as I walked out of the house to go to work next morning.

I spent a total of 4 hours to make the seafood feast.  I didn't have enough time nor energy to make any dessert.  So, I had  Edy's vanilla ice-cream to conclude the 4-course meal.  Who could blame me for that?  And the effort and the taste of the feast filled up not only the tummy but also brain of my husband.  He told me he was thinking about the food and me all day the next day at work.  I guess good home cooked meals does grasp a man's heart after all. Hahhahaaaa

Nerveberry Cobbler

I was excited to make this blueberry cobbler for my husband's family reunion but got nervous as I was making it.  The recipe called for less flour mixture than I expected and I was worried that it would come out only a puddle of blueberry juice from the oven.  The last blueberry cobbler I made had texture more like corn bread.  It was much thicker and heartier.  So, I was kept doubting myself and the recipe.  I kept pulling my husband out from his comfy Lazy Boy and having him come downstairs to check on my blueberry cobbler-in-process.  I said to him, "You have eaten a fair amount of blueberry cobbler in your life so you should know what a blueberry cobbler should look like.  Does this look like a blueberry cobbler to you?"  Instead of giving me an answer directly, he rushed back upstairs to his laptop and Google pictures of blueberry cobbler.  He came back down and assured me that mine indeed was what a blueberry would look like, based on his Google’s findings.  I still didn't trust the recipe.  So, I told him and myself that if it came out wrong, I still had time to make another one in the morning before we headed out to the reunion.  But I would double the ingredient amount for making the flour mixture.  I did add extra baking time for the cobbler in attempt to make sure that the blueberries at the bottom of the baking dish would not come out as runny.  After I took the cobbler out, I still could see the bottom part was not solid but my husband said it would firm up after I chilled it in the fridge overnight.  Well, what else could I do at that point?  I told myself that I would check it in the morning and if it's not to my complete satisfaction, I would immediately start from scratch and make another.  I remember I prayed for miracle before I went to bed that night.

The next morning, I woke up super early and sneaked back down to the fridge in my pj wondering if my prayers were answered.  God is good.  Not only did he answer my prayers, HE also gave the cobbler a magical touch.  To make the long story short, my blueberry cobbler was a big hit at the reunion.  I was the only person had no leftover to take back home.  The "bowl" was cleaned before everyone finished with his/her desserts.  Now that I thought about it, it was funny to send my husband out for my cobbler before everyone else in attempt to create an illustration to others that it was a good stuff.  Now I know it was silly and unnecessary. : )

But who could blame a high achiever like me?  Hahahaaaaaaaa