A Tale of Two Dinners

So far, I haven't burned anything this week! Hooray! I've also figured out how to use my small stainless steal pan to cook eggs without having a stuck-on, hard-to-clean mess to scrub off. That was actually pretty exciting!

But after Sunday's chorizo-stuffed acorn squash, I had plenty of chorizo left over. But my poor Northern husband is about as welcoming to spice as my cat is to any dog. (That is, she loathes them.) I will give him credit though: after I had smothered the chorizo in sour cream and hidden it with cucumber, tomato, arugula, a tortilla, and more sour cream, he did all right and ate those tacos like a champ. On the other hand, I love spicy food to the point where I have to blow my nose every couple of minutes when we get Thai take out. My native-California self misses Mexican food like crazy, though, so making tacos was probably more of a treat than I realized. I loved the chorizo with the cooling cucumber. I also used dubliner cheese, instead of more traditional cheddar.

(And I may as well state here, that unless otherwise indicated, photo credit goes to my husband, who apparently likes the pre-dinner photo shoots.)

                                            Yum! Tacos!

Tonight, I tried steak with cognac sauce, another recipe I found on Real Simple. I was so excited about this one. I mean, when I hear "any-kind-of-alcohol + sauce," I think, yay! more alcohol! Kidding, but usually, that means it's gonna be something special. Well, maybe I did it wrong, but this sauce had pretty much nothing to it! Maybe an experienced chef would have known that from just looking at the recipe; or maybe it really depends on the cognac you buy; or maybe you really do need heavy cream at 40% milk fat, instead of the 30% milk fat cream that I used. I mean, it could have been anything, but I was pretty disappointed in the flavor - or the lack thereof. The salad was simple and good, and the red potatoes I baked with basil and garlic were also tasty. I think that next time I would make a port-reduction sauce of some kind instead,  hoping for fuller flavor, and I'm determined to go on a sauce recipe hunt! Other than that, I could have cooked the strip steak a bit longer, and perhaps I should try a marinade next time to help keep it a bit more moist.

                                             Pouring the sauce on the steak.

So while this didn't turn out perfectly, isn't that a great picture? Live and learn!