So this Valentines I told Dale to organise the whole shebang (meaning book somewhere) but he went allout and decided to MAKE me dinner! let's just preface this whole thing saying he doesn't have a whole lot of time to spare most days and has only cooked for me a few times over the last decade..so I figured he would choose some approachable recipes with those facts in mind.
But noooooooooo he harnessed his freakish determination instead. It was all a big mystery except for the fact it effectively took up his entire weekend grocery shopping, preparing etc and that kind of tipped me off that something big was going down.
So wait for it....HE MADE MACARONS!!! White chocolate and raspberry pink macarons at that!!!
Ignoring just the physical difficulties of macaron making I was soo impressed he chose the such an aspirational (word? I thought wisdomal was a word for years so i'm ok with it either way) recipe just because it is my favourite thing ever!
Dale mid prep...
The finished product was in fact PERFECT and i'm even going to say better than a zumbo macaron..yeah I said it!and i'm a harsh critic so i'm seriously not fibbing for his ego. They were absolutely amazing....chewy, melting and perfect. he even got both a skin and a foot in the process..it sounds gross but these are "macaron terms"....
For the other course we started with a sexy fig, proscuitto and mozza salad with was super tasty.
We then moved onto a roast butternut pumpkin, sage and pancetta risotto which was super labour intensive and has a bit of a story behind it. I am not a lover of rice. I'll eat it, it and I have no major issues with eachother I just don't love it..and the wetter it is the less I love it if that makes sense. So Risotto isn't really my thang. So D, the risotto activist, decided to make me a real blood sweat and tears type risotto with all the stirring and palava and...drumroll...it was still gross. The crunchy piece of pancetta was nice and I could appreciate that it was tasty but it still had that wet sloppy rice thing that just isn't for me!
But I <3 you bubblicious and thankyou for the bestest valent9's ever. LOLROFLYTTYL!
that's a really nice dinner. i'm sure they were better than zumbo's as well. made with lots of love! :-)
ReplyDeleteVery impressed with d's efforts!
ReplyDeleteHEY DALE, HEEEEEEY. Seriously is he not the most awesome thing ever or what? Macarons! Figs! Romantic! Ambrosius would approve. ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm in the same boat with you in terms of risotto. I don't like the gluggy-ish texture. Carnaroli rice is 100000x better than arborio (no slop!) though, so I'm going to get on that.
haha guys...agreed!he's a keeper:)
ReplyDeleteelise your hubs did a pretty good job himself!
m this is like the 3rd time i've heard you mentioning carnaroli in the past few days so i'm going to go track some down!and i'm sure d has modelled his entire romantic life on ambrosius hahah how could anyone not!