Easy Date Night

Make food.  Make love.  Live well.

If I were a pessimistic type of gal, I might think the stars had aligned quite dramatically against a Date Night.  The entire family came down with a short-lived, but still nasty, cold (a first for all of us to be sick) which forced us to abandon our plans for a child-free, cavorting date night listening to music with friends under the stars.  Did I mention a bonfire?  C'est la vie.

As all parents know, you absolutely must carve out time together.  It is essential to survival.  So we put the kids to bed early and made the best of things.  Nothing too fancy, but good food and lots of time to sip wine and talk.

Whet the appetite

First up: crostini, which is possibly the easiest first course ever...but always satisfying.  You can make them with bread and anything you have on hand.  Tonight, we toasted the thinly-sliced baguette (brushed with olive oil) for about 3-5 minutes, then topped it with goat cheese, fresh tomato, sea salt and another drizzle of olive oil.  This is very subjective, but I think a good rule of thumb is to broil until the cheese bubbles slightly, but before the bread gets too brown.  Yummy bites.

The Butter Steak

Next up is the Butter Steak.  We had a NY Strip in the freezer, so that's what we cooked.  Basically, you sear off the fatty side, add butter and huge chunks of garlic, then add well-seasoned steak and allow it to cook  (relatively) slowly, over medium heat, basting with butter.  I could blame the wine or the talk, but we neglected to render the fat first.  It mattered not.  The steak was deliciously medium rare and The Crust was still quite amazing.

Spinach is the amazing shrinking leaf.

While the steak was resting, we poured off most of the butter and added some spinach, more garlic (this time finely chopped) and a little salt and pepper.  I like to cook spinach until it wilts by about half and turns a darker, but brighter green; then it's time to plate and eat.

I only put a tablecloth on half the table -- the half we ate on.  For Easy Date Night, candles swiped from the mantle and daisies from the hallway are perfect.  The steak was sliced and placed artfully atop the spinach, then butter-roasted garlic was tossed on that. 

This was a great meal.  More important than the meal itself is the time spent preparing.  Talking.  Laughing.  Connecting.  Life is too short to let a Date Night slip through your fingers.  Make it Easy.  Make it this weekend.  Make it fun.  Make it Real.

Bon Appetit!