This post is WAAAY late. I thought I had posted it already, but....I didn't. I've been too occupied with our other project. 

Some background. My Wife's friend from Montana flew in for our 'wedding' (aka very very small dinner >25 people), as a gift, she gave us a basket of some stuff from the farm she works on. best. gift. ever.

She gave us some:
Garlic
Mint tea
Lemon Balm tea
Raspberry Jam
Redcurrant Jam
really good Honey
Oregano

So, we decided to invite her over for dinner, and use the ingredients in a dinner for her.

Well, dinner was had on Friday to MUCH success...perhaps it was that false sense of "because I made it" but our guest loved it, and we chalked it up to one of the best dinners we've ever made!

Here was the 'fancy' tongue-in-cheek menu...


Garlic Honey lollipops, were really, good. Stole the idea from Pegu Club







Apologize for the not so great pictures, didn't wanna be that 'guy' snapping photos while the guest is thinking, 'i just want to fsking eat'

then we did the salad...the vinegairette was fantastic...really really surprisingly good. We used the red currant jam, some really good red wine vinegar we brought back from Italy (from Volpaia) and some really good Olive oil we have from Nice. No pictures though....sorry. Wife did the recipe, she just mixed like 4:1 oil with vinegar and red currant jam to taste, and a fresh cracked pepper.

Then we did the lemon balm and honey granita.....again, surprisingly simple and good.



For the main, I did the Mint 'tea' risotto with Lamb




chocolate mousse.



The mint risotto with the lamb was just awesome. Mint goes awesome with lamb, and well, I like risotto. It's no big deal to I'm sure most of you guys, but this is the first dinner I didn't go off any recipes....I patted myself on the back all night!

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Had one of those nights....went for a run, came home and dinner was spot on and super simple. Preheated the grill to incinerate, which on my propane grill isn't that high (about 700) unfortunately, I'm way too lazy to charcoal it for a Tuesday night. Aside from sourcing the morel mushrooms...(which I got at Whole Foods in Princeton for 39.99/lb....5 bucks worth was more than enough for a cup of risotto/4 servings)

Morel mushroom risotto




Marinated some lamb T-bones in red wine (shiraz)




served the rest with dinner

Grilled up some asparagus and topped with an egg.






perfect.

Such a simple quick dinner, and so damn good. Only prep in this dinner is dicing a shallot and rinsing some mushrooms for risotto really.

sneak preview for tomorrow...

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Craving lamb today, I asked Laurie to pick up some rib chops (I initially wanted loin chops, but, well, you don't wanna hear my butcher rant). She threw some new red potatoes with some garlic, evoo, and rosemary in the oven. When they were done, I, trimmed, and S&P the chops, quick hot sear in the pan on both sides, and removed them. I had some garlic butter in the fridge left-over from some garlic bread last week, and figured what the heck, if I'm going to use butter for the sauce anyway....so then I deglazed with some cognac and flamed it off, added some garlic-butter. Pretty simply, but good. Perfect mid-rare (more rare for me mid rare for Laurie)

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